User talk:Sminthopsis84/Archive 5

Apomixis

On Talk:Botany we have been drafting some new sections on plant genetics, with the aim of making the section specific to the genetics of plants rather than a generic statement of mechanisms of heredity. I would be very grateful if you could have a look at it - it is still in draft on Talk:botany, particularly the bit on apomixis. A short statement of the relevance of polyploidy to plant fitness and speciation is also needed if you are able to do that. Hope you can help, Best Plantsurfer (talk) 11:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

ggjksljk Orthorhombic, 18:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Gosh, thanks. Thanks also for suggesting a suitable onomatopoetic response to receiving a plate of baklava. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Source for plant family name Ripogonaceae/Rhipogonaceae

Can you source this edit? This explanatory edit appears to be original research, and APGIII, IPNI, and MOBOT all list Rhipogonaceae. --AfadsBad (talk) 23:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this adequately explained by Talk:Ripogonum? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:08, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I think sources go in the article, though, not on the talk page. This discussion simply says that a lot of online sources use it without the "h," which I don't think is how articles use citations. --AfadsBad (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see. The problem has clearly arisen because it is difficult to put a citation inside a footnote. I'll see if I can figure out how to achieve that. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Reading Wikipedia rules on citations, this "Because the Greek word ῥιπος begins with an aspirate rho rather than plain rho, classical scholars would prefer it be transcribed with rh- rather than r-. Consequently, some early botanists treated the Forsters' spelling as an error to be corrected. However, ICN Article 60[5] now discourages corrections of the original spelling, particularly concerning the first letter or syllable (Art. 60.3). (It is still recommended that the classical transcription rules should be followed when forming new names (Rec. 60A).)" appears to be original research. The information about the Greek spelling is not cited to a source; is this from the book that is cited later? Then it would be mixed in-line and a terminal citation that needs cleared up. The citation to the code is original research, also. We can't use the taxonomic codes ourselves as our interpretation and application of primary literature. I added one citation, but it is also primary, Taxon, and we need a secondary source, a journal use of the name subsequent to the Taxon, not our application of the ICN within an extensive footnot. --AfadsBad (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've made some small corrections to hopefully clear up some confusion; the wording on the page was too circumspect because the code of nomenclature doesn't just recommend in this case, it lays down the law (but in a polite way). Consequently, I hope it is clearer that the code is cited for exactly what it says, there is no OR involved.

I haven't seen the Nicholson and Fosberg reference, and do not have ready access to it. I believe that this matter is probably discussed very directly therein, because I've read other works by Dan Nicholson who is notable both as an authority on nomenclature and on the history of botany, and is careful in his explanations. Please take that matter up with the editor who added the material. The transcription of the Greek rho at the start of a word is, I would say, a general-knowledge matter that is quite hard to give a citation for. The whole matter of breathings and orthography of Greek is discussed in some detail on the page Greek diacritics. In my opinion, this is one of those matters where it is best to use the advice at Wikipedia:MINREF#When_you_must_use_inline_citations and not give a citation, because there is a point where citations start to severely clutter the material that is directly relevant to the page (in this case how Ripogonum is spelled, not how Greek has been pronounced and transcribed over the centuries). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not having any issues with your wording. My issues is that you and the other author have taken the ICN and interpreted it to explain the title of this article, then applied your interpretation as a citation. I do not think this is within the scope of what Wikipedia editors are supposed to be doing, and for good reason with anonymous uncredentialed editors; this is original research for a scientist, specifically a taxonomist. By posting on your talk page and that of the other author, I was hoping that you had found this information in another source, rather than having come to that conclusion and applied it to the article via your own taxonomic research. This appears to not be the case, that you can provide the sources, so I am going to raise the issue of removing the original research from the article. I can send you the Nicholson and Fosberg, if you would like. Thanks for your responses. --AfadsBad (talk) 21:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

This is one of those tricky cases. The facts appear to be:

1. Both Ripogonum and Rhipogonum are found in reliable sources. IPNI gives Ripogonum with Rhipogonum as "orth. var." WCSP gives only Rhipogonum. [Fully sourceable]
2. The first publication of the name was as Ripogonum, but the origin is from a Greek word which would usually be transcribed as "rhipos", so the spelling was "corrected" to Rhipogonum. [Fully sourceable]
3. Art. 60 does not permit such corrections unless the original spelling was a typographical or orthographical error. [Fully sourceable]
4. We don't have a source at present which says that the original spelling was not a typographical or orthographical error.

In the text, we can simply state 1–3. But we have to make a choice of title; we can't be neutral here. And then readers are entitled to know why that choice was made. We could say that we are following IPNI, I guess, and leave it at that, but I think some explanation in a footnote of the issues is justified in this unusual case. Yes, there's a degree of OR, but what is the alternative?

I had a similar problem at Roscoea cautleyoides, which is partially explained in the Taxonomy section (but only partially, which I'm not really happy about). Again the problem is the interpretation of the ICN. I had e-mail exchanges with both the WCSP and the ICN about the different names. Rafael Govaerts at the WCSP argued that as the only correct genus name is now Cautleya, then by the rules of the ICN governing "-oides" type names, the correct name has to be "cautleyoides". Kanchi Gandhi argued that the originally published name "cautleoides" can't be altered, even if rendered wrong by the base name Cautlea being invalid. I can't explain this fully in the article as it's based on e-mails. I had to choose one name rather than the other (I went with R. cautleyoides because that's what the monograph on the genus uses.) The point of this story is that Wikipedia's principles need to be applied flexibly in some tricky cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that we have any sort of expertise in taxonomy that allows us to explain this. I think that we can settle the name based on the Taxon article, or on APNI, without any problem, but having anonymous editors interpret the ICN is about the highest level of original reserach one can have in a botanical name; it's what taxonomists do. We are not taxonomists, and our explanation is not necessary. We can point out the confusing sources; we can tie those in to the botanical literature, but I think this is a solid rule of how to write a derived source of information for a popular audience, stick with supportable facts and information from secondary and tertiary sources, bending the rules around a primary source every once in a while, but not around original research. Wikipedia gets mirrored all over the place; we simply do not have the credentials to authoritatively decide the name of a taxon! To me, that is outrageous! --AfadsBad (talk) 23:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I moved to article talk page. --AfadsBad (talk) 23:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Typo?

Hi Smnithopsis84, I noticed this edit at the Dracula simia talk page. I think you may have a small typo that doesn't get your meaning across (at least to those less familiar with English). Hamamelis (talk) 15:42, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Hamamelis! I fixed a typo ... hope it was the right one! I'm glad to see that you are also watching that page. My mind is still reeling from wondering whether the speedy deletion and hoax tags could possibly have been put there just because two plants share the same common name. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes that was the one I meant (and the only I saw). Hamamelis (talk) 16:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for checking! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:14, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Joseph Felsenstein's contributions to cladistics

You said "have to agree with Peter M. Brown that Farris's ad-hominem attacks didn't help cladistics; Felsenstein was probably more influential."

I would like to know upon what basis you hold this view. Steve Farris invented the algorithms that are used for cladistic parsimony analysis, shut down the pheneticists (as noted in the material you and Peter Brown deleted from the Cladistics entry) and founded the Willi Hennig Society, among other things. Felsenstein promoted maximum likelihood, which most cladists view as an anti-cladistic approach to phylogenetic inference. ML takes into account autapomorphies (branch lengths), which Hennig explicitly stated are not pertinent to patterns of relationship. In my opinion, if Felsenstein is a "cladist," then "cladist" means effectively nothing. Do you have a reasoned response to this, or are you merely basing your opinion on a judgement of character? Abrower (talk) 12:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I see your approach as Hennig-worship, a point of view that no further contributions are permitted to the field of cladistics, that you are saying that the field is not even permitted to grow into multiple factions. Felsenstein developed ML methods, which are used to balance other methods, and would undoubtedly be used more heavily than they are if computational resource-use were not so demanding. I completely agree that "cladist" means effectively nothing. It was originally a slur cast upon those who reject phenetic methods and/or rank-based classification, preferring what were at that time simplistic solutions. The term was taken up as a self-characterization by some of the people who preferred those "simplistic" methods. I consider WP:UNDUE to be an important guide to how wikipedia material should be written, and surely even you would agree that Farris was not the only person working in the field at that time. I interpreted your edit as effectively claiming that without Farris's contribution, nothing would have been established. Farris used a definition of "naturalness" that was poorly defined and therefore contested, but rather than philosophically dealing with that problem, he published a series of papers that, rather than dealing with matters of fact and opinion in a thorough fashion, by failing to do so were effectively attacks on the authors he was criticizing rather than on the work of those people. Farris's personal behaviour at conference meetings is beside the point here. All that I'm saying is that you gave undue weight in the Cladistics article. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:24, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Obviously Farris was not the only important cladist in the 1970's. We could add Gareth Nelson, Norman Platnick, Donn Rosen, Colin Patterson, Joel Cracraft, and many others. The more general point, it seems to me, is that there are two ways to achieve "balance" in Wikipedia: to delete other people's contributions so that the article meets your own predilections/prejudices, or to add additional material that offsets those contributions. If every wiki contributor deleted every statement with which he or she disagreed, it would not be a very interesting or substantial encyclopedia. With regard to "hennig worship," at least I sign my edits with my real name and indicate who I am, rather than hiding behind a pseudonym or two. I have no idea what kind of systematist you are, or whether you have any other outlet for expressing your views than this open forum. I suppose if people are confused by the tepid drivel about cladistics in here, they can always read my book: Schuh, RT and AVZ Brower "Biological systematics: principles and applications." Cornell University Press, 2009. Abrower (talk) 11:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

"Obviously" doesn't cut it in wikipedia, explanation is needed, or the material that drives readers towards thinking that Farris was an overwhelmingly important influence on the history of cladistics needs to be tamed. Please read WP:UNDUE. I don't agree that all wikipedia pages should grow to infinite length. However, now you're getting personally offensive. Please don't post here again. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

As promised:

Hanlon's razor and WP:LIGHTBULB. Lectonar (talk) 12:36, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

So true! Some masterpieces of wikiwriting. "A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's Razor"" -- ouch! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Bangladesh

Hello,

I was wondering whether an experienced user like yourself, would be willing to rewrite the introductions in the Bangladesh and Chittagong articles. At present, they seem very messed up. --ChaudhryAzan (talk) 18:22, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, indeed those introductions are long and convoluted. I'm very busy with "real life" for about the next 10 days, but will have a look to see if I can help in some way after that. You might see me editing a bit during my busy time in order to keep up with my watch list (otherwise things fall off the end and I lose track), but be assured that I'm not ignoring the question. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:35, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

In the spirit of Ramadan..some jalebi/jilapi from Bangladesh!

		A plate of Jalebi for you
		Here is a plate of Jalebi for you. Jalebi is a sweet popular in countries of the Indian Subcontinent, specially in India, Pakistan, Bangaldesh. Hope you'll like it. Thank you. ChaudhryAzan (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC) For more Indian dishes, visit the Kitchen of WikiProject India.

And, I have responded to your email. Best wishes,--ChaudhryAzan (talk) 22:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, Ramadan Mubarak you too! Faizan 14:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, thank you both, that's very nice. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:12, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for the appraisal and the star. Your hard work and motivation to new editors is recognized. Faizan 20:52, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, asking for a review

I just edited the lead again, I think it's high time Wikipedia stresses Bangladesh's increasing economic, geopolitical and cultural importance. Please have a look, and make necessary changes if required. Thanks.--203.112.78.5 (talk) 18:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

If its too monotonous, please do change. Thanks.--203.112.78.5 (talk) 18:48, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

glyphosate article

hi

as i wrote the article has been a good place to work. recently a lot of vitriol has been spinning arising from conflicts over the March Against Monsanto article content, which seems to be spilling into related articles. hopefully that will die down and things will go back to normal, but i hope you come back. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. I hadn't seen the March Against Monsanto article. It's good to hear, I guess, that the silliness might be genuine, i.e., not people just pretending to be unable to read or to think about what they read. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

P.S. A friend recently remarked to me that they were surprised by the quality of the Glyphosate article, that they'd expected to find something really bad there. They asked what I'd done to achieve that, and I told them that I'd done almost nothing. That would be your work, I guess. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

IPU

I understand when you say that "the IPU isn't pseudo-invisible, it is invisible". The thing is, these are Grinbank's words, not yours or mine. Therefore, we can't really say that we need clarification on this b/c it's just his opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Studelasky (talk • contribs) 01:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. Of course, we should discuss this on the page about the article, but some preliminary discussion here seems appropriate. I think that Grinbank is writing nonsense. In a sense, the IPU is itself nonsense, so one might argue that that doesn't matter, but I'd disagree with that line of reasoning. The IPU is a construct intended to make a point, and Grinbank seems to be saying "well I can generate an argument that is just as silly, so I qualify as a scholar". I'm not sure where I saw in the wikipedia guidelines something to the effect that incorrect statements need to be immediately followed by a statement that they are incorrect (and I can't find it now). I'd favour removing Grinbank entirely because I don't think he is a help to the reader of the wikipedia article, quite the reverse. If he has extensive public exposure so that wikipedia readers are likely to have encountered him, then, I guess, he should be included. To try to explain the quotes from him would be venturing into quite savage philosophy. Do you know of any published material that counters him? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Found the wikipedia guideline about dealing with quotes. It says "Never quote a false statement without immediately saying the statement is false." So when he calls the IPU quasi-invisible although by definition it is invisible, this might not seem like an earth-shaking matter, but it is a false statement that I'd argue mustn't stand as is. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

He has a lot of public exposure, especially in the arena of apologetics and debate. The reason why he calls the unicorn "psuedo invisible" is because he says it reflects pink electromagnetic radiation (therefore the unicorn cannot be invisible). His statement really isn't false, it's just demonstrating that being pink and invisible is paradoxical. If you read about his argument of natural theology from the beginning of the article (it has four parts), his arguments do make sense, well, if you're coming from that perspective: http://www.truefreethinker.com/articles/flying-spaghetti-monster-invisible-pink-unicorns-et-al-part-1-4 Basically, he criticizes the validity of IPU replacing a god who shares the qualities of being timeless, spaceless, immaterial (especially this attribute), as well as omniscient and omnipotent. I favor leaving it in since it does give a decent critique of the concept and the criticism section is short as it is anyways. I tend to agree with you when you say that "To try to explain the quotes from him would be venturing into quite savage philosophy." I don't know of any published material that counters him but with most of the article dedicated to supporting the concept of the IPU, a short statement by Grinbank criticizing IPU is not problematic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Studelasky (talk • contribs) 18:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

By the way, since you made a superscript requesting a clarification of his argument on FSM, I added a "Note" there, quoting his explanation of FSM earlier in his article. I didn't want to add it in the main space of the article because we really shouldn't devote more space to Grinbank than necessary. Putting his explanation as a "Note" solves this problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Studelasky (talk • contribs) 18:04, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I have an idea about your "false statement" idea. I think adding another "Note" stating that proponents of IPU state that the IPU is invisible, while Grinbank calls IPU "pseudo-invisible" should amend any lack of clarity here. Sound good? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Studelasky (talk • contribs) 18:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, looks good. I've added another note about the "misdirected" puzzle. The Abel & Schaefer article is quite interesting, particularly because the authors seem to think that an online community that values rationality necessarily involves anomie, and therefore can't last in the way that a religion could. That might make an interesting extension to the article, but I don't feel inspired to try building it. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I just checked it out and the "Note" you added makes it look even better. It is an interesting journal article, but like you, I don't have the time to work on it right now. It was good working with you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Studelasky (talk • contribs) 21:59, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Common Soapwort

Thanks for making the move request for Common Soapwort. I've had my eye on that and another half dozen articles titled "Common foo". I think "Common foo" is a bad choice as page title; most of the plants are actually commonly known as "foo", with "foo" being ambiguous for the genus and it's best known (frequently UK native) species. "Common foo" is an invention of botanists, not really a truly common name. If you're inspired to make any more move requests, I've got a bunch of "Common foos" listed at User:Plantdrew/sandbox (and 100+ other articles at common name titles that might be better at the scientific name). Plantdrew (talk) 18:35, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Let me add my thanks too! I can't think of a genuinely common name, as opposed to a made-up English name, where "common" is used in this way. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

You're both very welcome, as always. I hadn't realized how poor the "Common foo" form was for that particular plant, or that an RHS page would be such a wonderful source for common names. The reason that I was looking at the bouncing bet/crow soap was because of it being labelled a vespertine flower, though it has quite a midday display and many midday insect visitors. That adjectival error is clearly quite widespread. Might get around to battling some "Common foos" at some point ("common foes"?). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:17, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of article title of Whitebark pine

You are welcome to join the discussion at Talk:Whitebark pine#Requested move to scientific name. —hike395 (talk) 04:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikibreak

I am taking a Wikibreak, you know I am quite busy at times. Stop your cruelty, I am not as bad as you think. To err is human, to forgive divine. I know I need to improve my edit summaries, and one more thing, the RfC at Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was with a result and with consensus. I was hurt by your message on my talk, I had expected it more in terms of aiming at my improvement. Anyway, thought of leaving you a note. I will keep a glimspe at my huge watchlist. Faizan 07:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I don't know why you are using sarcasm here, and am sure that I did not use sarcasm in my message on your talk page. Yes, I made a mistake, it was Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1971#RfC: Is the United States relevant in the supporters of Pakistan? that was closed without consensus, and I apologize for my confusion that came from having all three RfC's displayed on the screen at once.

I have been leaving you messages that I hoped would lead to an improvement in your behaviour, but if there has been any improvement, I've overlooked it. Your thinly disguised edit-warring continues at a rapid pace. You make a lot of claims that others are cruel to you, that you are not hounding other editors, and that your behaviour isn't bad, but these are just empty statements, not real discussion. Now I find that you seem to have misunderstood the barnstar, as you seem to think that it meant "carry on as you have been doing". The barnstar came with a message "For your understanding after recent criticism.", which I had hoped that you would understand as meaning that I was glad that you hadn't taken the criticism too hard, and not that the criticism was unwarranted.

I see no evidence that you are taking a wikibreak because the list of your edits on 15 August is quite extensive, including an edit to a template after you stated here that you are on a break. It looks as if you need to read Wikipedia:Wikibreak. This might seem to be a trivial example, but for an encyclopedia to be worth anything, it needs to have editors who pay attention to how words are used and get definitions right and check facts. It is possible for a wikibreak to be forced upon you, is that what you want? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:20, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Nettles

Hi, I'm not quite sure whether to thank you for drawing my attention to the problem with the Nettles page via the WP:PLANTS talk page, or not. :-) I've enjoyed working up the Stinging plant article; I found it an interesting and diverting topic. There's more that can be added, I'm sure. On the other hand, fixing the ~400 links to "Nettle" is not interesting! I've not yet found even one that should have been to the article as it was written (i.e. the general English use of the word "nettle"). Many links are problematic; they often refer to whatever species of Urtica is/are commonly called "nettles" in the relevant locality, probably often U. dioica, but not clearly so in many cases. Where there's doubt I've redirected to Urtica, as at Toronto ravine system – but that's one you may be able to fix more precisely. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter, sorry about that, and many thanks for doing so much of the work! I don't know whether you noticed the edit war on 13th August, which side-lined me until you came to the rescue. Actually, I had an interesting experience while visiting a very frail elderly neighbour, who has tall Urtica plants in her garden, taller than the hydrangeas, but they didn't sting me, and she didn't want me to remove them. I'll have to go back with a hand-lens. Extremely savage nettles do pop up in gardens here, so I had expected these to be the same. I'll look into the Toronto ravines question. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:05, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

wikEdDiff in Safari

I saw your post at User talk:Cacycle/wikEdDiff#Version 0.9.18 broken in Safari. You can get the old version which worked in Safari by disabling wikEdDiff in preferences and instead add this to Special:MyPage/common.js:

importScript('User:PrimeHunter/wikEdDiff 0.9.17.js'); // [[User:PrimeHunter/wikEdDiff 0.9.17.js]]

I'm not maintaining the page. Any future wikEdDiff fixes or improvements will only be to the version enabled in preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! wikEdDiff has been (when it worked) wonderful for checking tiny edits to see if they were vandalism. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:35, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Gentler sports in Dorset....

Riding horses over church towers....? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Poor horse. What a peculiar place. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:16, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For your great extent of valuable contributions! :) Zayeem (talk) 08:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Well thank you, that is thoughtful of you. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Black currant (disambiguation)

I'm not sure about treating Black currant (disambiguation) as a DAB. I suppose including Black Current brings in a non-plant use of the term. WP:MOSDAB suggests that misspellings may be included (though I'd suspect the more likely mispelling is "current" for the fruit rather than "currant" for the car). If it were treated as a SIA, I'd be inclined to title it List of plants known as black currant, which is admittedly rather ugly, but I'm not sure there is a better alternative. I'm OK with leaving it as a dab for now, but added the |plants parameter to the dab template (which gets it it categorized at Category:Plant common name disambiguation pages). I added the Disambiguation Project banner to the talk page. I'd like to get a Plants Project banner on the other pages in the aformentioned category, but am holding off until I can figure out how to get Auto-Wiki Browser to help me with the process. Plantdrew (talk) 22:03, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, I really don't know about these various page formats, and I only concentrate on getting the possible ambiguities together in some fashion. Sorry about that. Yes, the electric car does seem rather a stretch, but not much of a stretch from "current", and I think "current" needs to be there. Interestingly, a google search for "electric currant" just gave 26,600 hits, including an evocative google books entry "A mild electric currant ran from the tip of her fingers, up her arm and past her elbow." (I find it easier to imagine that as a red currant than as a black one.) The Kuroshio Current, an ocean current called Black Tide, seems, I think, to be a very legitimate point of confusion enhanced by translation into English, at least with "black current", and I don't think it makes sense to have a page called "black current (disambiguation)", though, perhaps given the propensity for spelling problems, perhaps there should be a redirect :) ... Such a tangle ensures from trying to anticipate other people's possible tangles ... Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear, on further inspection, it does seem to make sense to have a page called Black current (disambiguation). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:33, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I can imagine; the capitalization alone isn't likely to keep the car and the current straight. Anyway, I think it's fair enough to keep Black currant as a dab, but for future dabs you make covering common names, use the "|plants" parameter in the dab template. I think it's useful to have these categorized so we can track the plant related currant in the disamiguation ocean.Plantdrew (talk)

Okay, I take it that the plants parameter should be used even if there are quite a few non-plant items in the list. (I think this one will accumulate other material with a bit more work on it.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:14, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about adding the parameter if there's only one plant, but definitely would if there are several plants, even if the are lots of non-plants (this seems to be how the other dab template parameters, e.g. |geo, are used). Plantdrew (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that advice will help. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:15, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Synonyms question

I'd be particularly grateful for your view at WT:PLANTS#Taxonomy question concerning synonyms, since you drafted the WP:PLANTS guidelines on synonyms. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I've replied there with an *opinion*. That's a tough one indeed, a reminder of why we normally don't see synonyms listed for a species if there are also subspecies accepted. It's annoying that some of the really relevant literature, like the 1929 document called "Nomenclature: proposals by British botanists" isn't available online even though it has been scanned and shows up in google books and the HathiTrust. Other journals such as Brittonia and Taxon I do have access to, but many would-be editors would not. Thank the heavens for BHL! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Brodiaea nomenclature

I thought I'd post here rather than at WT:PLANTS, because it's a bit detailed for a general talk page.

My understanding is as follows.

• Hookera coronaria Salisb. was published first.
• Brodiaea grandiflora Sm. was published later. So at the time of publication, it was a superfluous name for the species, and hence neither the genus name Brodiaea nor the epithet grandiflora had any legitimacy under the current Code.
• Then it was decided (and included in the 1961 Code) that Hookeria Sm. and Hookera Salisb. were too confusingly similar, and although the moss genus Hookeria was published later, it was Hookera that should be rejected in favour of conserving Brodiaea.
• However (and this is the tricky bit I'm not sure of), making Brodiaea Sm. the conserved genus name did not change the status of the epithet grandiflora in Brodiaea grandiflora. So at this point there was no name for the species Hookera coronaria in the genus Brodiaea. I would have thought that the epithet coronaria would transfer automatically, but (as far as I can tell) this isn't right. So someone had to publish the combination Brodiaea coronaria.
• There's then disagreement in sources as to who did this first. IPNI lists some alternatives, including Engler (1899) and Jepson (1917). Some sources go with the former, giving Brodiaea coronaria (Sm.) Engler and some (including WCSP) with the latter, giving Brodiaea coronaria (Sm.) Jeps. So far I can't find a discussion of why the latter is correct.

Comments, please! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:41, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

IPNI lists a large number of species in Hookera, so I wanted to check whether it was clear when Smith was working which the type species of Hookera actually was. (Interestingly, there's also Brodiaea subgen. Hookera Eastw. Bergen's Elem. Bot., pt. 2 20. 1897) It is published in Paradisus Londinensis t. 98 which is by Hooker. The plate shows Hookera coronaria, and the following page has the description with the vernacular translation of the name as "Garland Hookera" which seems to suggest that Salisbury was thinking that at least one other Hookera species was already described. There appear to be no others in that book (and no index either). It's interesting that Salisbury didn't really publish a genus description. There is no other Hookera species listed in IPNI with a date anywhere near that. (Aside: perhaps a document will yet turn up that does have such a genus and a type species!) Perhaps there were pencil annotations in a herbarium. The really interesting part is a bit further down in the English part of the description:

"For this and several other rare plants taken from a Spanish prize condemned at Halifax in Nova Scoria, I am indebted to Mrs Haliburton of that place. It flowered in June last at Mill Hill and is one of those mentioned in Dr Smith's Introduction to Botany as countenancing Jussieu's idea that the flower of all 1-cotyledonous plants should be called a calyx. Dr Smith's words are "Two species of a new genus, found by Mr Menzies on the west coast of North America have beautiful liliaceous flowers like an Agapanthus with 6 internal petals besides!" My generic character with Mr Hooker's dissections which are very accurate render any comment upon the above observation unnecessary, and the genus confirms instead of invalidating what I have presumed to say relative to this subject, in the 8th volume of the Linnean Society's Transactions."

When Smith made a separate genus, he would not have realized that H. coronaria would be later established as the type of Hookera and that he mustn't move it.

Conservation proposals are very much for the preservation of stability so that the horticulturists don't lose their tempers, so I think that Hookera became a forgotten genus, which is in line with Jepson's comment.

So yes, I think you are correct. Since no earlier publication of a genus description with type species has turned up, then Smith's redescription is superfluous and illegitimate.

Poor Smith, he might have been annoyed by all this, and I can't help wondering whether naming the genus after Hooker instead of whoever (the Brody sisters?) would have incensed him. Could they not have asked Smith "may we name it after you?" (or Mrs Haliburton)? My tendency is to see the Hookers as domineering characters, but that is not based on a lot of reading, just the Kew Rule and the comment at the start of Genera Plantarum about ignoring the works of certain botanists. The codes of nomenclature have been largely, to my mind, intended to undo the effects of the Kew Rule. Perhaps the 8th volume of the Linnean Society's Transactions contains some comments that would inflame Smith or de Jussieu or both. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:58, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this. Brodiaea seems to be named after James Brodie, who was mainly interested in cryptogams – an odd twist of fate given that Brodiaea only became the correct name because Hookera was rejected in favour of the moss name. Why it's not "Brodiea" rather than "Brodiaea" I'm not sure, but it may be that "Brodie" was first Latinized to "Brodiae" and then the "a" added. Brodie was known to Hooker, and seems to have been a fellow member of the "great and good" of the time.

Is it actually possible to name a genus after more than one person? Epithets certainly with -orum and -arum, but Stearn at least doesn't suggest any method for a generic name. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Commelina and Tradescantia are named for multiple people, but there's nothing in the formation of the name to indicate that. My grandparents have quite a few insect species named for them both (using "-orum"), and I suspect at least one of the seven genera incorporating their surname commerates both of them (not just my grandfather), but the endings "-ia, -ion, -ella, -ites, -tenus, -oma, -ilitis" don't seem to necessarily be plural. Maybe there's no special way to indicate multiple people are commemorated in a genus name. Plantdrew (talk) 21:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It's nice to see collaboration honoured in taxon names. Perhaps there are some named after multiple people that don't share a surname, but I don't know of any such ('Felicité et Perpetue' is a great cultivar name, and there should be a page about that rose). The current code allows a lot of flexibility in forming genus names, though the final result has to take the form of a noun in the nominative singular. Recommendation 60B Note 2 even suggests using anagrams such as Gerardia and Graderia both formed from Gerard. I don't think we have complete online resources that could show whether some other genus had already been named after Brodie; IPNI, Mycobank, and Algaebase don't have any obvious candidates. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 02:05, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Because the genus name has to be singular, I think you probably can't show that two people of the same name were intended, whereas you could form some kind of amalgam of two different names in the style of the names of nothogenera, but I don't know of any. Botanists are generally somewhat more sober in naming than, e.g., entomologists as per the notorious Cyclocephala nodanotherwon. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:22, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

... and that 1970s era genus name Hallucigenia. Recently I corrected a statement at Bauhinia blakeana that it was named after Sir Henry Blake, by adding a citation to the description in BHL which states that it was named after Sir Henry and Lady Blake. I haven't seen other examples of that sort of thing, but wonder if it could be quite common, perhaps even due to hypercorrection by editors who assume that the honoured persons must be singular in more than one sense. Something to look out for, perhaps. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that the tale of how Brodiaea became the accepted genus name is somewhat murky. User:Nomen ambiguum (a taxonomist in disguise?) corrected my wikilink: I had the wrong William Hooker; Salisbury named Hookera after the illustrator not the botanist. Following up the sources a bit more, I found the Dictionary of National Biography entry on Salisbury. It seems that he had fallen out with the botanical establishment, including Smith, and so Smith deliberately set out to deprive Salisbury of credit for the genus, first by naming a moss genus Hookeria and then by creating Brodiaea to replace Hookera. I suspect that the same botanical establishment agreed the conservation of Brodiaea and Hookeria over Hookera, although this is speculation. See what I've written at Brodiaea#Nomenclatural history and the source at [1]. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

What an amazing story! It certainly makes one wonder if there ever was a Spanish ship and a Mrs Haliburton and how that bulb got to Mill Hill! I had no idea that there was another William Jackson who was an illustrator. I'm fairly sure that William Hooker (botanist) was also an illustrator. TLII doesn't mention his work in that area, though as far as I can tell from library catalogue entries, not having seen the actual books, he seems to have made drawings himself from microscopic work such as British Jungermanniæ: being a history and description of each species of the genus and microscopical analysis of the parts. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

This sounds a lot like an anecdote I heard (although almost completely opposite in every detail). Supposedly A bryologist named a genus after somebody they didn't like, fully expecting the genus name to be sunk into synonymy, thus depriving the rival of ever be commemorated with a genus. Of course, there are many possible ways to use a surname in a genus name, so this plot wouldn't be very effective. I wonder if the anecdote I heard was a garbled version of the story about Salisbury and Smith. Plantdrew (talk) 00:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps. There seem to be quite a lot of strange stories in taxonomy, including Audubon teasing Rafinesque with paintings of imaginary fish which Rafinesque dutifully described, and William Blandowski managing to deeply offend the people he named some fish species after. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:36, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Email

I sent you an email. HalfGig (talk) 12:04, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Meiosis

Good to see you following up my edits to Meiosis – I was going to ask you to look at it. For such an important article, it's almost incomprehensible to those who don't already understand it, I suspect.

I was wondering if it would be better to start with a deliberately over-simplified schematic view, omitting all the possible variations, names of the phases, etc., just concentrating on the essential steps involved. Then afterwards go on to the "proper" terminology and complications. To this end, I prepared File:Meiosis main steps.svg, which I think shows the pairing of homologous chromosomes and subsequent crossing-over better than the diagram currently in the lead. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:49, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter, it's good to see you working on this. I agree that a very simple description at the beginning is needed, and would need to be defended by watchers. I don't generally try to do much on those fundamental articles other than whack obvious errors as they appear, because I have the impression that there is a lot of ebb and flow going on, that as soon as a readable introduction is achieved, someone will come along and add lots of obscuring detail.

I suspect you're right. The easy and most enjoyable way for editors to work on Wikipedia is to write and edit articles in a fairly obscure area which happens to interest them (e.g. my work on Roscoea and its species) and then the articles don't readily get messed up. But every now and then I get the urge to contribute to the general good!! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:42, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Hurray for Roscoea! (And my recent tiny effort on Petrocosmea forrestii, no more than a photo, and a very painless addition).

On the question of diagrams, you seem to have crossing-over happening as separate steps in the two chromosome pairs, so that could give the impression that it is necessarily desynchronized. A problem with both the original and your new diagram is that the final four cells can have different combinations of chromosomes, but the diagrams give the impression that the process is deterministic, so I wonder if it would be too confusing in some other way to draw it all with a single chromosome (pair).

The problem with one chromosome is that it doesn't show the pairing of homologous chromosomes, which also seems to be important. An animated diagram which produced different results at each run would be better, but I'm not sure how to create this. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:42, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha, how silly of me. I'm like a Monty Python cardinal who can't count (there's another joke lurking in there somewhere, something to do with cardinal numbers). I'll try that again: when I say one chromosome, I mean a homologous pair, i.e., in the first circle of the diagram a red bowling pin and a grey bowling pin.

Ah, I realized that's what you meant (i.e. one pair rather than one chromosome). What I meant in my response was that with only one pair, the figure doesn't show that chromosomes pair up in a specific way. By having two "large" chromosomes and two "small" ones it can be seen that alike chromosomes pair with each other making a "large" pair and a "small" pair. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:48, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

So it is a balance between what to emphasize, the assortment or the pairing. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I'd like to get meiosis better connected to the various possible life cycles, so as to give biodiversity its due. On Biological life cycle, however there is a lot of that obscuring detail, and it is unfortunate that the life cycles of trematodes and those other interesting parasites get in the way of a clean meiosis/mitosis view of life cycles. There is also Alternation of generations, but I'd like to see good coverage of the organisms that have somewhat different mechanisms, discussing Euglena and spindle formation and breakdown or not of the nuclear envelope. Diatoms are always fun too, living in their progressively smaller petri dishes until they blow up like a balloon for sexual reproduction. It's a huge topic, though. Cytokinesis would be connected to it, and currently deals only with idealized animal and plant cells. So much to do (as somebody or other's last words were said to be). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a classic Wikipedia problem. In a designed encyclopedia, there would be a carefully planned set of articles with minimal overlap which covered the material. Here we end up with a random set with overlaps and contradictions, and not enough careful development. I won't have much time for a while, but it's a topic I intend to come back to. User:Curtis Clark had said that he would do some more work on Alternation of generations, because he'd taught this material for a long time, but he seems not to be active here now. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:42, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Curtis seems to have freed himself from the burden, which is good to see, that there is life after wikipedia. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Aronia

Hi there, I noticed you made a few changes to the Aronia page (I was the IP address that added Aronia mitschurinii). I am actually the author of the Leonard et al. paper and was curious as to your treatment of the genotype as a generic hybrid. The translations of Skvortsov and Maitulina's papers provided to me by Irina treat it as an Aronia species. While we were writing that paper there was much discussion on how to treat it. We settled on Skovortsov's treatment with the possible addition of A. × mitschurinii. Our theory is that it is likely a ×Sorbaronia fallax back-crossed with Aronia melanocarpa one or more times. Just a friendly inquiry. I was part of the Brand lab that is trying to promote the crop and help credit its original developers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leonard978 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, that was a half-baked change. I'd found the paper that made the move to Sorbaronia, and it is a publication for Atlas Florae Europaeae, so that seemed to be a good basis for making the move. Unfortunately, the usual databases that we follow for plant taxonomy here are not good for Rosaceae, so this was a bit of a leap of faith. I forgot to actually put that article on the wikipedia page, though! Will try again, and hope to make more sense this time. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 01:27, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The authors of the paper would, I'm sure, be following article H4 of the Code of Nomenclature, which states "a nothotaxon is circumscribed so as to include all individuals recognizably derived from the crossing of representatives of the stated parent taxa (i.e. not only the F1 but subsequent filial generations and also back-crosses and combinations of these)." Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

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Ludlam edit

I am puzzled by your edit of the Scott Ludlam article. If Ludlam was either holding the fifth position or no position then he was logically eliminated by those that took the fifth and sixth positions. If only the fifth then he would have won the sixth would he not? Anyway, it is not important for now pending the appeal process. Djapa Owen (talk) 02:24, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh. I thought that your reversion of my edit was probably due to an edit conflict, where you had picked up the older version, and submitted your edited version after my change went in. The Guardian article says "Labor's David Johnston won the first spot, followed by Joe Bullock (Labor), Michaela Cash (Liberal), Linda Reynolds (Liberal), Wang and Louise Pratt (Labor).", so I see why "Wang and Louise Pratt" appeared on the wiki page, but if Ludlam is now in, that is at the expense of one person, not two. The current situation as I understand it is that preferences that were interpreted as going to Wang, now go to Ludlam, so Wang and Pratt are no longer equally ranked. The Guardian article makes it clear, I think, in the first paragraph with "after losing his bid to return to the Senate, with Palmer United party candidate Zhenja Wang taking his place", no mention of Pratt there. Yes, I believe Ludlam is in 6th place and Pratt in fifth, and Wang out, at this moment. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not understand the exact detail of the preference flow (probably only Anthony Green does), but apparently in the first count it came down to a margin of 14 votes between the Shooters and Fishers and the Australian Christians that determined the flow of preferences and hence whether it was PUP and Labor, or Greens and Australian Sports party who got the last two spots and at that stage Ludlam was likely to get the fifth spot. In the recount the margin between S&F and AC was 12 in the other direction and meant that Aust Sports and Greens beat PUP and Labor but now Aust Sports are 5th and Greens 6th. That is why I changed it to two parties replacing two parties because it is not really clear who displaced who. Djapa Owen (talk) 12:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Your understanding is far deeper than mine. If you want to revert I'll see if I think it is sufficiently clear; it did look as if two people were sharing a seat (it probably needs additional, more recent citations). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:27, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sminthopsis84. You have new messages at Faizan's talk page.
Message added 14:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Faizan 14:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Your reversion of my edit

Greetings and felicitations. I see that you reverted my edit. I'm sorry about my mistake—thanks for including an informative comment about the reason why. Not all editors are so helpful. ^_^—DocWatson42 (talk) 04:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello! It's good to see you working on that page. That x thing is something that I've had to check a couple of times myself, but the old terminology is persisting. From Rieger, R.; Michaelis, A.; Green, M.M. (1968). A glossary of genetics and cytogenetics: Classical and molecular. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 9780387076683.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link): "x - a symbol for the basic number of chromosomes, i.e., the smallest number of chromosomes in a chromosome set." and "n, 2n, 3n, etc. _ shorthand for the different degrees of ploidy. The numerical prefix denotes the number of chromosome sets. ..." They are used like x in a mathematical equation, and can appear in, for example, 2n+1, (a type of) trisomy. Yes, edit summaries are a huge help to understanding, and it would be good if everyone used them. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Need Explanation

Hello Sminthopsis84. These ([2], [3]) are serious allegations I suggest you to revert or else give plausible reason for those edits and edit summaries and better not to repeat it. Thanks -- SMS ^Talk 18:32, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

And I suggest you behave more reasonably towards new editors. Breaking up a section with a ridiculous title ("Muslim homeland, provincial elections, World War II, Lahore resolution: 1930–1945") into two sections with more sensible titles seems a perfectly reasonable edit to me. If you didn't agree, you should have explained why on User:Ct205's talk page, not simply writing that the edit "did not appear to be constructive". It was clearly constructive. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Peter, for responding to this while I was away from my computer for a few hours. It is a very good point that the heading was too long, quite absurdly so, and the new editor who was attacked was clearly acting in good faith, making a carefully considered edit. To explain further to User:Smsarmad:

• I have discussed this matter further at User_talk:Faizan#Notification, and have no intention of reverting my edits.
• I stand by my statement that the two editors behaved together as a "pack", with very similar actions, and that that is not appropriate in any context. Conscientious wikipedians read what others have written and do not duplicate it. We are all drowning in talk-page material, "less is more".
• Duplicate attacks, or thoughtless attacks of any kind, are absolutely not the way to behave towards a new editor.
• Actually no, in the context of wikipedia, these are not "serious allegations", as you claim. Please do not use the phrase "serious allegations" unless it is warranted. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@User:Peter coxhead as you seem to be replying to me so I would like to ask you did I write "did not appear to be constructive"? @Sminthopsis84 Since you are unwilling to take that accusation back I prefer to take community opinion on this at ANI (Link). -- SMS ^Talk 06:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

That needs explanation too.

Templating regulars? And even with the wrong template. This notice is not understandable. And you know very well that my edit was not a "test-edit". Thanks for teaching me the use of Sandbox. Faizan 11:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Secondly the innocent User:Ct205, whom I and another user "bited" was an experienced "Sock puppet", and he has been blocked. Faizan 13:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

polyura orchid Comment

I'm confused. You just fixed a reference in Eria polyura and 20 minutes later undid my merge of Pinalia polyura to E. polyura. I'll accept your judgement about going with WCSP vs. TPL, but surely we don't need articles at both combinations. Is there some reason you were fixing the article at E. polyura rather than redirecting it to P. polyura? Plantdrew (talk) 22:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that. At this point I'm totally confused. At first I assumed that you were correct, and wanted to fix the journal title and link to BHL. Then I remembered this being discussed some time ago, at which point there seemed to be a general consensus that TPL picks things up wrongly from WCSP sometimes, and that WCSP is probably more reliable. The main reason that I rethought, and decided that WCSP must be correct is that Commons is following that. In the process, however, I compared the lists of accepted species in Eria that start with the letter "P", and found them very different, so it is a bit worrying. Also, Eria seems to be an older name than Pinalia, according to IPNI. Also, I frankly don't understand what Kuntze is saying and whether he was intending to merge the two genera as they were at that time. So, ... sorry for stepping on you. If you want to revert, perhaps those citations that I've added can be put on the surviving page (I'll do that if you like). (Aargh, perhaps I need to take a break.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm less worried about which generic placement is most up to date and more worried about having two articles on the same species. An IP editor restored P. polyura after you'd moved and redirected it to E. polyura, so I assumed E. polyura was the better placement. I'll make Eria polyura the redirect. Plantdrew (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! Yes, there shouldn't be two pages. The monocots check list is supposed to have been incorporated in both those databases, I think, so they should agree. It's a weird situation. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

TPL doesn't continually update from its source databases; it's Version 1 and about to be updated again (see the announcement at the home page). If you look at WCSP, you'll see that Eria polyura is under the "Accepted by" tab for Govaerts, R. (2003), and Pinalia polyura is under the "Not accepted" tab for Govaerts, R. (2003). So I suspect that WCSP changed to accepting Pinalia polyura after TPL took its data. I agree that this latter is what we should use. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Peter, that clarifies. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Re: Amygdaloideae

Ok, I fixed it according to your instructions. By the way I proposed here the deletion of Category:Maloideae, just in case you want to give your opinion. Also, I think Template:Taxonomy/Spiraeoideae should be deleted, but since taxoboxes have been automated I don't know what's the correct procedure. Thank you for your advice. --Canyq (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems simplest to just delete them from species boxes; there used to be hundreds of them, and presumably those deletions have saved some maintenance effort as subfamily assignments were changed. Of course, if there is only one species in a genus, by WP:FLORA there is no genus page, so the subfamily would be a useful component of the species page. Thanks for the pointers to those proposals, I'll take a look. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Deleting the template is beyond my expertise, but I'll ask for advice at WT:PLANTS. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, again, thank you very much! --Canyq (talk) 21:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk redaction at Species

I will investigate what you have done, and seek the WP basis you have used for such an individual corrective action. I have seen folks swear at others here, and have never attempted such a correction. It is nice to know there are lines that can be crossed, and that action can be taken. Cheers. LeProf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 21:42, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for considering what I did in the spirit in which it was intended, as something to improve tempers. The message that I placed on your talk page is a standard one from the Twinkle set of tools. Deleting comments from a talk page is not a common thing to do, but it can be done in a far more thorough fashion by administrators, who can expunge comments so that they no longer appear in the edit history; what I did is less drastic. It's moderately common here for someone to delete something from a user talk page if they notice what might be upsetting to the talk-page owner, a little friendly gesture. Your frustration is clear, but there isn't much that an individual can do here to reduce the level of poor material, except chip away at it. We are all unpaid volunteers, so it generally doesn't work well to apply pressure to good-faith editors.

By the way, you are handicapping yourself in some little ways by editing as an anon. For example, there is a "thank" action available when we inspect edits, but it can't be used for an anonymous edit. You also aren't allowed to (directly) create new pages. And then there are, unfortunately, some impatient characters who take the attitude that every edit from an anon is vandalism, and there aren't necessarily enough people who carefully consider the edits to get them back in place before the anonymous editor gives up in disgust (I've seen this happen with a good friend, who hasn't edited in the several years since). So I hope that you can get over your understandable frustration and stick around to see what you can achieve to improve matters, without letting the general awfulness of wikipedia's treatment of the natural sciences wear you down. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I have been editing for several years, first under one login where privacy was violated, then under LeProf_7272. I rarely log, to protect my renewed privacy, and as an act of rebellion against the way that Wikipedia rewards things other than high quality content and necessary related formatting. (When there is a clear sense that even editors with many friends in their networks can be disciplined for egregious acts, and when EJ Corey can write a 1000 word article on Total Synthesis and be adequately esteemed for that one authoritative scholarly edit—then I may again regularly log.) Note, finally, your reversion of my edit removing material unrelated to the Steroid subject heading on Partial and Total Chemical Synthesis, a heading that Bohog and I discussed at length, has as its consequence that I will no longer work on that section, or on the Steroid article in general. Three strikes and out. I have time to create and produce quality work, not to engage in back and forth nonsense, and this and earlier reversions of the same misplaced material—without any attention to my Talk on the Steroid Talk page, where the removed text was placed with explanation, and seemingly without felt need that the reversion from you be explained—has been a waste of time that I will not further indulge. Perhaps you can offer to write the partial and total synthesis material for Bohog. I'm truly done. LeProf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 08:26, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, it is necessary to guard one's privacy here, not just from deliberately provocative editors, but from good-faith editors who imagine something based on one's identity and jump to conclusions about one's character. Prejudice is everywhere, and a pseudonym can help to reduce its effect. The flip-side of that is that there cannot be any real credit given to an individual author of material here. Most pages are due to many, many editors, so people rarely even look at the edit history to see who wrote what. One has a vague reputation based on how one behaves, but other editors hardly ever see the entirety of one's contributions, they are too busy with the pages on their own watch list (for example, I have 3,509 pages on my watch list, about 20 of which have meaningful activity each day).
• If you write something good here, it will be copied everywhere. Some text that I wrote is now in something called www.biology-online.org/dictionary, askdefine.com, en.citizendium.org/wiki, meddic.jp, ... After some consideration I don't mind: an obscure fact is now "common knowledge" and at least those sites aren't misleading people on that point. For an absurd example, see this correction. When I looked yesterday, there were a slew of those online, free, whatever, dictionary systems with the same ludicrous redirection of Burramyid to Binomial nomenclature. Perhaps that's changing already as bots respond to the changes in wikipedia. (The wikipedian who did that in 2006 seems to have been acting in good faith, but using some sort of automatic content-generator. The online dictionary entities don't reveal their time-lines, so it is not clear where the blunder originated.)
• I reverted your edit on Steroid because your complaint seemed to be that the material didn't match the subject heading (subject headings can be changed), not that it was bad material, and because it seemed to be a situation where the other editor needed more of a chance to respond. Frankly, your comments at Talk:Species prompted to hold you back a bit at Steroid.
• The bigger pages tend to be the worst, in my opinion (I wish people wouldn't build them up). Sometimes the best approach is to edit pages in areas related to a problematic page: correct those, and there can eventually be a backwash effect towards the problematic page as other people fix small contradictions, or at least one can hope that students find the fixed pages rather than the scrambled one. The whole process here is terribly slow, but I have seen surprising rays of light appear years later on pages that I'd despaired of. The system does, paradoxically, work (sort of). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and will try to keep up with your contributions, but your "intervention" at Steroids was a last straw for me, at an article that has been "one step forward, two steps back" since I arrived. (Last straw, there and in general.) The fact that you did not review Talk, and made no Talk entry about your reversion made it drive-by (a phrase I will not use again). Article disrespect was shown by the one-time, tidbit-offering, heading-changing original author—yes, headings can change, but they should be discussed beforehand!—and by you, and it was disrespectful as well to Bohog and I, who attempted after long discussion to set a better course for the article by incorporating insights from Encycl Brit's outline, in placing the Partial and Total Synthesis section. (The editor's feeling making the microbial edit that you are concerned about may never return, and if she or he does, their feelings are adequately addressed by keeping the text available in Talk; in any case, given a little time, the text likely would have been placed where it should go, properly, by other editors.) If you believe something should go back in, for goodness sake ask others where to place it, if you are not editing at the article, of late. Having it back in is more disruptive, more confusing, etc. than a patient wait and a once-and-for-all proper placement. The Steroids article is bad enough as it is, more a sandbox than an article (though not so bad as Obsidian's Species fiasco). I will look to your work, but I'll not be investing further, broadly, here. Cheers. LeProf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

You have exhausted my energy. For the foreseeable future, I'll be ignoring the species page. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Help

Hello Sminthopsis84,

Could you give me a help or suggestion about this template I'm trying to do: [4]? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zorahia (talk • contribs) 19:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Zorahia,

I'm not much of a fan of templates (sorry), as I prefer pages to be short, and information not to have strict boundaries around it. When a template of this sort appears on a page, I see it as similar to some of the vandalism that we see here, when a student adds a sort of short summary on a page that doesn't do the subject matter justice, such as this edit. I think that readers need to be encouraged to read the older botany books such as Goebel's "Organography of plants", Arber's various books, Esau's "Anatomy of Seed Plants". That's why I consider it counter to the spirit of education to lay down the law as is done at Epidermis_(botany) with "In some older works the cells of the leaf epidermis have been regarded as specialised parenchyma cells, but the established modern preference has long been to classify the epidermis as dermal tissue, whereas parenchyma is classified as ground tissue." A reader of an older book would be lost if they were trying to rely on a definitive statement that epidermis has no relationship to parenchyma.

A few random comments:

You could ask for suggestions at WT:PLANTS, and a particular question that other opinions would be valuable for is the classification. Although the classification of organisms is not definite, Wikipedia does in effect choose a particular one, and I'm not sure what the project participants have decided about Tracheophyta and Spermatophyta.

Similarly, what exactly a strobilus is depends on who you ask.

Gynoecium is not just a feature of flowering plants, though the page hides that information away (which is a problem with that page).

The central cell of flowering plants is also a gamete.

"Carpel/Pistil Stigma Style Ovary Fruit/pericarp Endosperm" is a rather jumbled list, with some sub-parts at the same rank as the structures that contain them.

If you have cork cambium, then you need phellem and phelloderm.

Xylem also contains other cells (fibres, parenchyma) and extra-cellular features such as gum plugs and resin canals.

With all but "oosphere" you seem to be omitting the algae, so perhaps you want to remove oosphere.

Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello Sminthopsis84,

Firstly, thanks by the comments. Templates can be restrictive, and sometimes visually polluting (the WP in German seems to hate them), but like it or not, they are very usefull, when well done - which clearly is not the case of my template... I think WP misses good templates about plant structures, like we have for human anatomy (Category:Anatomy templates). Zorahia (talk) 01:13, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, I'm not able to judge the human anatomy templates. Wikipedia is missing a lot about plant structures, Glossary of botanical terms and Glossary of plant morphology are a good beginning, but could be twice as long and with many images. Do you see this new template as removing some material from the Botany template? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I moved our comments to the WT:PLANTS talk page.Zorahia (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

People may be busy at this time of year and consequently not doing much in wikipedia. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Appreciated big time

Hello I see you put lots of work in the article. I just wanted to say thank you very much with helping out. You are my early Christmas present Gr Barry--Freedombulls (talk) 23:53, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I only write the clarrification on Genetic background--Freedombulls (talk) 00:14, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi. So the page is there for now, but there is more work to be done (due to a technical hitch with a pre-existing redirect, the AfC process didn't complete the way it is supposed to). Since these battles can get quite ugly, I would suggest for the sake of that seasonal peace of mind that you might want to not look at wikipedia for a few days. Take a copy of the page, though, in case you want to use the text for something else, which is permitted by the licensing. Seasonal greetings to you and the dogs from me and my friend Rumples (who is an extremely sweet English Bulldog who looks like an old white guy in striped pyjamas who has been stepped on by a rhinoceros, poor thing). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:12, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello to you and Rumples
The copy i take every day but again i want to thank you for your efforts.
Whiteout your help I would not come as this far
I wrote an piece to show them that there 4 examples that in my opinion would make the cut for being notable.[[5]]
Happy Holidays
Gr Barry--Freedombulls (talk) 11:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Leavitt Bulldog

There are serious issues about the notability of Leavitt Bulldog, which you recently accepted as an AFC submission. Please see Talk:Leavitt Bulldog#Notability and the pages it links to. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, well, my judgment is that the page does pass the notability criterion, and I would hope that the spirit of the AfC process is that reviewing is done without seeing the past contention, which tends to get into the TLDR category. The film Pedigree Dogs Exposed – Three Years On, in my opinion, is a notable source, and there is more work to be done at the Olde English Bulldogge page to disentangle what are now two breeds. Call me a geneticist, but if the original breeder has dissociated himself from the breed(s) recognized by other clubs, then I consider that these are not the same breed, and a separate page is warranted. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:00, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Happy Holiday's

Freedombulls (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thank you, that's a nice thought. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:50, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Happy holidays

Happy Yuletides!

Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!) Hafspajen (talk) 15:27, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Season's greetings from PaleCloudedWhite!File:SoleteRayosÑajo.gif
Hello Sminthopsis84, wishing you all the best at this cold and dark time of year!

Christmas dinner

Machinima of Santa Claus's reindeer filmed in Second life

Imploring that Sminthopsis enjoys a sumptuous Christmas holiday and a naughty New Year! First play this → → →

Now play this!
I dare you to tell me that you did not smile.

Cheers!
— | Gareth Griffith-Jones |The WelshBuzzard| — 10:31, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Conquistador

You beat me to it, though it looks as if you looked more closely at which bits were worth saving - I just reverted the lot (I'm sure you understand why...!). Feel free to re-add that bit if you think it was worth saving. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 13:50, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, we think alike. I'm working on trimming one of the sections to try to make sense of it ... quite a big job! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:52, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I suppose there is a sense that could be found behind that bit you deleted, but your edit summary is spot on. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:17, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's tempting to get drawn in by the nuggets of sense lying amongst the large quantities of grammatical detritus, but unfortunately I think the Spanish editor is encouraged to add much more text if s/he thinks we're happy to go along afterwards and correct their additions, and I think we both know from experience that that's a route to a certain amount of exasperation, to put it mildly... (though there are some humour compensations - "seedlings tolerate evil shadow" etc., haha!).... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 15:08, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's only possible to stand a certain amount of that disjointed material. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:19, 26 December 2013 (UTC) P.S.: I'm a bit tempted to try to draw him/her out by adding a mock-up of a connection from the background section to the rest, something like "Ferdinand I thought to himself "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em"". It must be contagious.

Link

Hello Sminthopsis84 and Mr Rumples I hope you had a nice Christmas?
We have an old picture saved from the Manalapan Patch from 2011 it’s a small news page online
http://manalapan.patch.com/
The link on the picture does not exist anymore but I thought I share it anyway with you and maybe you can use it somehow.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By1bibOP1vn7RUxBRnctM1F6SmM/edit?usp=sharing
Gr Barry--Freedombulls (talk) 23:45, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Also viewable at http://manalapan.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/rare-breed-dog-show-makes-tails-wag

That page says that it is copyright 2013, all rights reserved, and there is no credit for the photographer. It's a pity the breeds in the photos aren't identified. Would that photo have been taken by a staff photographer for the paper, or would it be a photographer hired by the Rare Breed Association? You could try writing to the editor, whose name is given on that page, to see if they own the copyright and are willing to donate the photo to wikimedia commons. The photo can have explanatory text with it, giving the date, the place, the show, etc. Assuming that the person in the photo doesn't mind (I'm guessing that you know her), I think that a photo of the dog that won a blue ribbon, with the ribbon and all, would be a nice addition. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok thanks but i will leave it at this too much work to find the photographer and get him to him to post his stuff in wikimedia commons specially because the page does not exist anymore.
But thanks for looking into it for me
--Freedombulls (talk) 15:44, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Those naughty photos of leaf bases

Behind the bush, or how to carry your own private Great Birnam Wood on your face.

Behind the bush.

Truly splendid horticulture! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:35, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Wonder what our gardener PaleCloudedWhite would say of this topiary. Hafspajen (talk) 19:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The terraced gardens are still defined by the yews, often trimmed into abstract topiary, planted in the 18th century or earlier.

"Topiary by any other name would smell as sweet", perhaps. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

That topiary looks very well executed, though personally my preference is for something a little more organic... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:22, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

That's magnificent! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

• Which one is very well executed, the face topiary or the bush topiary? And how on earth do they climb up in Powis Castle to cut that giant hedge plant, whatever it is? (Looks really nice) Oh, it is yew! Hafspajen (talk) 22:22, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Combinatio rejiciendum?

Hi Sminthopsis84,

I wonder if you could shed some light or direct me to help on the botanical abbreviation "comb. rej." (combinatio rejiciendum?), as used at this Flora of China page (where they say "Edgeworthia papyrifera Siebold & Zuccarini; E. tomentosa (Thunberg) Nakai, comb. rej.; Magnolia tomentosa Thunberg, nom. utique rej."). I've not been able to find a definition for it.

The reason I'm asking is because of recent edits made at Talk:Edgeworthia#"Edgeworthia tomentosa" and the Edgeworthia article (history).

Thanks (and happy new year!), Hamamelis (talk) 21:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Hamamelis, happy new year to you too!

Oh dear, what a mess with the Edgeworthias, and it is getting to be frustratingly difficult to grab hold of reliable up-to-date literature to check that sort of thing against.

• Flora of China volume 13 is getting to be old enough that a lot of nomenclatural changes have happened in the meantime, but in this case I think it is absolutely correct when it says that E. tomentosa (Thunberg) Nakai is a synonym of E. chrysantha Lindley.
• Tropicos agrees with FOC.
• TPL says the opposite of FOC, namely that "Edgeworthia chrysantha Lindl. is a synonym of Edgeworthia tomentosa (Thunb.) Nakai", and they still haven't installed their promised update yet, the one that "resolves errors known to occur in Release 1.0." That's not the first example that I've seen of them getting something backwards.
• Magnolia tomentosa Thunberg, nom. utique rej. The latest code of nomenclature, the Melbourne Code has been split into two volumes, and the second one with most of the appendices is not yet published and is not online. The previous version, the Vienna Code, Appendix V Nomina utique rejicienda, section E Spermatophyta starts off with the explanation "The names printed in bold-face italics, and all combinations based on these names, are ruled as rejected under Art. 56, and none is to be used.", and it has an entry "Edgeworthia tomentosa (Thunb.) Nakai, vide (i.e., see) Magnolia tomentosa", which appears further down as a rejected name. So Nakai moved the species from the genus Magnolia to the genus Edgeworthia in good faith, but Thunberg's Magnolia tomentosa has been ruled by the Botanical Congress to be an unrecoverable taxonomic disaster area. Nomina utique rejicienda is translated in article 56 of the code as "suppressed names", though it would be more literally something like "names to be absolutely rejected". Flora of China is being extremely punctilious in distinguishing rejected names from rejected combinations.
• I've no doubt that there are gaps in wikipedia's coverage of these lovely Latin phrases, even the well-known ones that get zillions of google hits, so if you have suggestions about what needs to be added that would be a big help because I just look at it and feel faint.
• But of course, you're also interested in the more obscure Latin grammar, which gets a bit ludicrous when I apply my minimal Latin training to it, but here goes. It seems odd that the comb. rej. phrase isn't frequently spelled out in full online. So, checking the 2.5kg Latin dictionary, it turns out that the noun combinatio is feminine, with genitive form combiationis, which makes it third declension, I think. So the singular nominative seems to be combinatio rejicienda (zero google hits!), and the plural might be combinationes rejiciendae (a phrase that actually gets two google hits! which probably proves nothing). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:05, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help and insights, they really help. They also prompted me to try Google Ngram Viewer (zero hits). I also tried regular Google to see if I got anything different from you with combinationes rejiciendae (exact phrase), but got what you got, I think (two different web pages for the same "Annales Academie Leodiensis"?). {by the way, I tried the Ngram for the word "wikipedia", and there were mention(s) as far back as 1966! Anything back then had to have been in a completely different context, but I wonder what?}

I'll see if Edgeworthia needs some work with the references, etc. Regarding the 'lovely Latin phrases' gap, I'll give it some thought. There might even be a WikiProject:Latin (under a different name, apparently) that could help. Thanks again, Hamamelis (talk) 07:15, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Try Wikipedia:WikiProject Latin. Oh, and yes, there is a Latin Wikipedia. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 07:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Davidwr! I've asked on the Latin project page. It would be great if the Latin wikipedia had entries on all the botanical phrases, but that would require some serious knowledge and effort. About the google hits, I can't find the 1966 one(s), but giving search tools a larger range, 1960-1970, the hits appear to be data errors. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:22, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

So the context of the 1966 Wikipedia appears to be statistical noise. Darn! I thought we might've had the beginnings of an urban legend. Hamamelis (talk) 01:17, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that the term that FOC should be using is "nom. rej.". Recommendation 50E.2, note 1 of the code of nomenclature says so. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:18, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Very nice detective work, Sminth! There's something new to learn every day. Hamamelis (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Even more amazing material on the urban legend front (on your talk page). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:14, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

New dawn, new year!

With best wishes for 2014! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:25, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Well thank you for the lovely sentiment, PaleCloudedWhite! A very happy new year to you! I won't try to post on your talk page among the colourful explosions that are going on there. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:47, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Happy New year

Hafspajen (talk) — is wishing you a Happy New Year! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the New Year cheer by adding {{subst:New Year 1}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Proposing bot behaviors

At Talk:Gomphocarpus fruticosa you proposed a change in bot behavior. The problem is probably bigger than just that one bot, so this could be something suggested for coding into all bots, or not. I expect there would be other implications of telling bots not to make more than one edit. In any case, if you did want to make a proposal about what AvicBot does, then that could be done on that user's talk page. To make a grand proposal about all bot behavior, you could do so at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard, or even at Bugzilla. There is never a need to feel shy about making requests. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's really just lack of energy when there is such an enormous amount of botanical work to be done. I'll think about it. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

What if non-admins could move over multiply edited redirects, but only those where the extra edits had been either fixing a double redirect situation or adding categories (categories added either directly, or with a "redirect to..." template adding a hidden category). That would enable most of the moves I've wanted to make but been unable to execute. But it might be technically challenging to implement. Maybe revise guidelines on cut and paste moves to allow a cut and paste over a redirect with 2-4 edits? Though that would open a big can of worms. I don't have the energy to argue it out in the appropriate fora, but I can dream. Plantdrew (talk) 04:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, because I've no idea how technically challenging it could be, I fear this could be a tar baby for the person who proposes it, as discussions on the main fora so often can be. Your first solution was what I was thinking of, and think would be good. The categories are a good point (and those "R from ..." templates). A sub-admin power for people who request it would also be good, though presumably just as challenging to implement. I wouldn't want to be able to move pages indiscriminately, just over teensy redirects. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 122#Streamlining page moves over redirects?. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:52, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Trying again

I've decided to try again to make Cucurbita as good as we can. I'll start by going back over the peer review. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you again for your long support and superb guidance. Best wishes to you on the New Year. HalfGig talk 13:02, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

That's wonderful to hear, HalfGig. illegitimi non carborundum, as we cracked Latinists say. I expect that you've seen that I've been very slowly working through copyediting the page, and will try to work more on that as time permits. That seemed like a suitable way for me to become familiar with the material before tackling the dangling fa nomination. (It's a daunting pile of paper to work through, the page itself and the discussion.) Let me know whenever I could help with what you are doing. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the support. Yes, there's a chunk of work to do but the bulk is already done. Help greatly appreciated. One question, for the citation you asked for synonyms, do I need one for each synonym? Do you know of one source for all of them? HalfGig talk 12:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

The synonyms list should come from a single source, and I wasn't quickly able to find one. If sources are mixed, it can produce inconsistency. It needs to be a genus synonymy, i.e., that there are no species in any of those genera that haven't been transferred to Cucurbita. Now I've found it in Tropicos. Yesterday I was bamboozled by Mellouia for which gbif cites GRIN as the source for placing it in Cucurbita. IPNI and GRIN don't list Mellouia. It's a typo for Mellonia. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

NPP noticeboard

I thought you might be interested to know that as a response to experiences similar to yours with new page patrol, we are introducing a new noticeboard to help centralize feedback and recognize trends in individual patrollers' performances. We hope this will give us better visibility on which patrollers are jumping on minor article issues too quickly. Kind regards! VQuakr (talk) 23:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Dipterocarpaceae

I think it would be help to have a practical key: based on 'user-friendly' morphological characteristics for the Dipterocarpeae and Shoreae. We need this here in the Viet Nam National Parks - and I propose to start one off - if you agree ...

I am an entomologist and only an amateur botanist, so would need peer review! Brgds Roy Bateman (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, that sounds interesting. I can't offer a lot of time, though, and don't have access to a good library for Asian tropical plants. I guess that you want to base this fairly substantially on Watson & Dallwitz's key that is linked from the Dipterocarpaceae page, and no doubt you have good off-line references where you are. What I've done previously with Dipterocarpaceae was little more than combatting the enthusiastic efforts of a person who wanted to add unsourced and poorly sourced material to and then translate from the Spanish wikipedia (not very good translations either, unfortunately). The discussion group at WT:PLANTS is active and often very helpful, so further help may be available there. Let me know what you need … Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Tree articles?

Given your comments on the Plout article, I was wondering if you'd have any interest in helping or commenting on Evans Cherry. I'm looking for articles to improve to 5x DYK expansion or GA for the wikicup, (GA would need other collaborators) -- and I've had my eye on that one, it's just a stub someone else started -- the photo is of an Evans Cherry in my yard. (Delicious pie cherries!) But I am unfamiliar with the standards for the plant articles and was hoping you could perhaps add some of the basic taxobox material and otherwise help guide my efforts. (I have multiple GA and FA articles, but most of them are about horses!) I parked some external links I found when I added the photos, but didn't do much else. Montanabw^(talk) 03:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, yes, it needs inline citations. I've put in a cultivar box, but you might want to alter the origin line to use the earlier Alaska information. (I've seen that cultivar for sale in nurseries, but didn't realize how significantly hardy it is. Hope it isn't as short-lived as the 'Meteor' I used to have.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Heh, I'll get around to expanding and citing it, it's wikicup season, I think it's ripe for a 5x expansion. I like your edit summary about the netting! LOL! There are actually two of them, and so far, (knock wood) they've made it through six Montana winters and are now on their seventh. We are also at about 4000 feet and very dry here, in a rain shadow of the continental divide, about 12 inches of rain a year. (I do some supplemental watering in the summer) I think we started harvesting fruit in 2011, when the photo was taken, we probably could have in 2010, but the birds beat up to the punch until we figured out that we needed to net the trees! (the netting was not a professional job, but a great example of how you can use that orange baling twine to help fix anything!) the cherries make truly wonderful pies! We've also had an outbreak of aphids a couple times too. So far, they just keep hanging in there! Montanabw^(talk) 23:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure. Let me know if you need advice about the page, but I'll keep out of your way as you battle forward towards a wikicup. Yes, sour cherries are wonderful. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm OK at digging up sources and inserting material into the article, but the nuances of botany are not in my area of expertise, so feel free to watchlist and boldly dive in any time. I was one of the collaborating editors on Yogo sapphire and had we not gained the help of some gemology and geology folks, it never would have made it to FA. More hands on deck is always a help! Montanabw^(talk) 18:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

:) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Cucurbita status

I think all we have to before we ask Sasata to do a good copyedit and overall check prior to filing for featured status is: expand the lede, and look for things that need tweaked. HalfGig talk 23:18, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yucca

I deleted the illegitimate synonyms on the Yucca faxoniana page pursuant to someone's suggestions that synonymy in the taxobox should be limited to those names that have actually been used fairly recently. Some species have dozens of old synonyms that have not been used in centuries, and illegitimate names cannot be revived. And by reverting my editing, did you intend to remove the links to the biography pages on the authors of the names? Or was this an unintentional oversight?Joseph Laferriere (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, where is that suggestion? It sounds like the approach that zoologists use, but they have a Commission set up to decide when a name has or has not been used sufficiently recently, something that botanists only do by conservation/rejection proposals. Citations are needed for synonym lists, and in my opinion we should list all the synonyms that the citation lists, but make redirects only for those that seem to be in use. That way, a reader can then search for any name they are interested in, such as something that they found in an old gardening book. I think it is helpful for us to take those lists as they are given at the sources and not worry here about whether a name has been rejected in favour of another name, rejected outright, or has failed to satisfy some requirement of the code. There is a discussion of what to include and exclude from synonym lists at the plants project page. Oh, with the links to biography pages on the authors of the synonyms, that was an oversight, but it seems to me to be unnecessary to link them in the synonym lists since there will be a very large number of them on some taxa, and because generally we hide the synonym list unless someone clicks on a link to display it, as for example at Cynodon_dactylon. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion I referred to was on the talk box here in Wikipedia. I forget who made the comment, but I could look it up if it is really important. It seemed reasonable to me, as some highly variable species end up with dozens of names, some of which can never be revived. But whatever.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 17:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello again. I just discovered your changes to Yucca elata, specifically the comment "We do not examine specimens here at Wikipedia." I did not put those specimen citations in there, and was unable to figure out who did. Joseph Laferriere (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I take your point that I might have unfairly thought that you did that. The thought briefly crossed my mind, but I didn't look to see who did it. Sorry. Now that I know you a bit better, I know it isn't your style. There's a lot of terrible botany that gets added to wikipedia, and that is a very minor problem by comparison. I think of most of what I do as similar to whacking at a page with a stick, not very effective or delicate or thorough, just reducing the awfulness with a single fairly easy action. See for example this fix or this one from yesterday for cringe-worthy material.

There are some ways to find out who made a particular change. Searching the edit history can be rather tiresome, though effective. There is a link from the history page called "Revision history search" which takes you to a tool called wikiblame, which can be rather fun, though it runs very slowly and uses up a lot of some computer's resources. For Yucca elata the phrase "Representatives material studied" eventually yields "Insertion found between 18:43, 8 March 2008 and 19:36, 8 March 2008", and that edit can be found in the history. It would be very unfair to accuse the person who did that thing at this point, though! Wikiblame can be very useful for chasing a vandal, but most vandals are long gone by the time one needs to use that tool to track them.

Best wishes, Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Cinnamon

Regarding your recent edit to Cinnamon, I just want you to know that I did not add that phrase about "taking advantage of the trade winds". I just re-worded what was already there. There is a source for the quote about "rafts without sails" -- the historian Pliny. The question is, whether even that statement adds anything significant to the article. I doubt any traders on rafts poled the rafts from India or Sri Lanka across the Indian Ocean to the mouth of the Red Sea, but they may have poled their way up the shallow water along the edges of the Red Sea to a spot close to the Mediterranean. I don't know how much of an effect wind would have on a raft without a sail. I understand why you deleted it, but the statement that cinnamon was transported up the Red Sea on "rafts without sails" does kind of lead one to speculate.CorinneSD (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I realized that you didn't add that. We shouldn't speculate in wikipedia, but it turned out to be not too difficult to find with a web search, and indeed the wind was used with unsophisticated vessels and with much loss of life. Pliny seems to have been amazed. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I am amazed that they used rafts, too. (I also think Pliny would be amazed that we are still discussing his works 2,000 years later.) Your last edit to Cinnamon was excellent.CorinneSD (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Somewhere while looking for that I saw a statement that Pliny described any small vessel as a raft, but don't know now where that was. It still seems bizarre that even if they were coracles that a person could use their strength to go any significant distance without an oar or sail. Unless Pliny didn't consider a paddle to be an oar … Sorry that the url didn't go straight to the page as it was doing when I looked at it. I've added page numbers etc. now, so it will be easier to find. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Prunus dasycarpa

I've made a very rough start on Prunus dasycarpa. Should we leave the name that or rename to Prunus xdasycarpa or Prunus x dasycarpa? HalfGig talk 18:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

If we use "x" I guess we should try to make the x smaller. HalfGig talk 18:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, that could be a question for WT:PLANTS. There are no instructions on the project page. Prunus × yedoensis has the multiplication sign, Prunus persica x Prunus americana has an x. My preference would be to name the page without the multiplication sign, but that might confuse some readers. There should be redirects for the versions with the x and the multiplication sign (and ideally there should be four of those, with the symbol separated from the species epithet and with it adjacent). Other opinions seem to be required. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Started thread over there. Put a Canadian ref in the article ;-) HalfGig talk 18:50, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Now that that's sorted out, I've fixed Prunus persica x Prunus americana as well. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Teamwork Barnstar

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		For always being exceptionally kind, helpful, knowledgeable, and understanding in helping other editors, especially in botanical topics. HalfGig talk 20:02, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you HalfGig, that's very kind of you! You deserve an award from me too, when I find a suitable image. Your work is plugging important gaps where neither botanists nor ordinary plant users have been able to bridge a difficult divide, so it seemed that wikipedia might never acquire that material. That's not easy to represent in a picture … (Sorry that you've been getting flak from someone who thinks that after creating a page 22 minutes ago, and working steadily through 7 edits (one by me), that pausing for 3 minutes means it's time to hit it with an orphan tag! Actually, "thinks" is probably the wrong word.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:11, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Phloretin

Hi. I notice that you've reverted my edit to Prunus mandshurica in the sentence about phloretin. Am I right in thinking that you've done this on the basis of the description in the cited document? If so, you may find it useful to examine the article on phloretin itself, where you'll see that the compound in question does not fall into any of the standard groups of compounds commonly called "antibiotic" (that is, it's not a penicillin, a cephalosporin, a tetracycline, etc.). Rather, it's one of the chalconoids, many of which have antibacterial and/or antifungal characteristics. Indeed, the article on phloretin nowhere describes it as an antibiotic. You'll also not that phloretin does not appear on Wikipedia's reasonably comprehensive list of antibiotics. Further, if you google "phloretin", possibly concatenating the word "antibiotic", you'll find that the papers that pop up do not describe phloretin as an antibiotic, but as an antibacterial or antimicrobial (for example, googling "phloretin" and "antibiotic" gave me the following results as the top papers/abstracts: http://www.bioinformation.net/004/010000042010.pdf , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17466326 , http://iai.asm.org/content/79/12/4819.full , and so on). I do recognise that the reference that has been used in this article describes phloretin as an antibiotic, but I strongly suspect that this is an editing or proofing oversight in the source. Note that the source of the reference is http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/trees/handbook.htm; you'll see that the editors of and contributors to the source are largely from the forestry and conservation departments at NDSU, and are not specialists in antibiotic development or use. For example, I notice that the NDSU source also seems to suggest that P. Virginiana (the chokecherry) is an antibiotic! Anyway, I think my point is that it might be less misleading to describe phloretin as an antibiotic, and more helpful to use the more general term "antimicrobial". I'd be interested to hear your comments.

By the way, on a more or less unrelated note, I see from your user page that you're interested in the Rosaceae. My own interests include the sorbs and the cotoneasters. If you're ever in Edinburgh, I particularly recommend the Edinburgh Botanic Garden's collection of cotoneasters, which is one of the best I have seen, and certainly merits a special trip. (I'm not from Edinburgh myself, but I stop off at the Botanic Garden whenever I'm there.)

RomanSpa (talk) 03:39, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh sorry, no that was an accident. There were a lot of edits going on at the same time, and checking the changes before submitting wasn't enough, I should have checked afterwards as well. Thanks for pointing it out, and I certainly agree that it is better to use precise terminology. It's fixed again. Thank you also for the tip about Cotoneasters at Edinburgh. I've been there only once, and didn't see that collection. It is still a puzzling group to me, though I have Fryer & Hylmö's 2009 book sitting here chiding me about ignoring the genus. Recently I was shown a pear that was grafted onto "Peking cotoneaster", and consequently quite elegantly dwarfed, so I've been trying to obtain plants to try as rootstocks for other maloids. Sorbus are always interesting, the quintessential complex apomicts, and a genus of just the right size for people to have some real understanding of (unlike Cotoneaster, Crataegus, Malus, or even Amelanchier). Nice to meet you! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 04:09, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Prunus simonii

Allen3 ^talk 09:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Sundarbans

Hi, we meet again! I just saw your nice effort to remove the confusion in that article, but I guess it should be moved back to its previous title as the official site of UNESCO describe the Bangladesh part as "The Sundarbans". We can have a hatnote in the article to prevent such confusion.--Zayeem ^(talk) 18:59, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh dear, how confusing. What about making a page called "Sundarbans" about the ecoregions (Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests and Sundarbans mangroves), with a hatnote directing readers to the other pages? Much material is already there about that topic that could be used as a basis, and then those pages about the reserve and national forest could be shortened (which I think would make them easier to read). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

This would require extensive discussions especially by the chief editors of that article, but I guess for now we should move it back and have a hatnote that would direct to Sundarbans (disambiguation) or Sundarban National Park to prevent such confusion. WP:COMMONNAME also applies here, since AFAIK in Bangladesh it is commonly referred to as Sundarbans and in India they call it Sundarban National Park.--Zayeem ^(talk) 20:01, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay, do what you want with it, I'll removed it from my watchlist. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I hope I'm not being misunderstood, you are definitely more knowledgeable in this topic and of course more experienced in Wikipedia than me. What I'm trying to say is that we need to make the major changes going through proper discussions to avoid the future conflicts.--Zayeem ^(talk) 08:08, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, sorry if I was curt. The WP:COMMONNAME convention is one that I don't like, most notably in the context of plants, but an adequate exception has now been made at WP:FLORA. I don't think that it is productive to argue from "people say this more often" when what is often happening is that people use simple, ambiguous terminology. Rather than argue against that wikipedia convention, I'd rather just leave the Sundarbans situation to people who prefer that approach, and I'd save my energy for battles where I can make a difference (though the Sundarbans and the nature of Bangladesh are areas where I would particularly like to make improvements in wikipedia). The other problem with discussing this before taking action is that people will not have a full alternative in front of them to consider, and I find that that kind of discussion is unlikely to get beyond the angry-reaction stage. I could go ahead with making the page about the ecoregions that I think would help to resolve this problem, then we could start a discussion and perhaps back out all of my changes … Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I was actually concerned with the title especially. The idea of having a page about the ecoregions sounds useful, probably under the title Sundarbans forest? If you are interested we can work on that.--Zayeem ^(talk) 18:24, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay. There's a lot of work to be done. I started with the old version of Sundarbans mangroves, and found that just linking it reasonably requires fixing other pages. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:11, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you talking about this revision? It looks confusing to me, but the bibliography in the last para could be useful. I guess we need to start afresh inserting some texts from the current version.--Zayeem ^(talk) 15:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it looks to me as if there was an original structure involved several pages that made more sense than the current structure, and the confusion seems to be due to the ambiguity of the phrase "The Sundarbans". Your suggestion of a page called "Sundarbans forest" would be a good step forward, though people will probably rename it several times. To reduce the confusion and the edit warring, I think it is important to cover the biology first, and the political divisions of the area second. In order to create a new page that is reasonably free from attack, we need to be able to link it well. I started looking at links for the rivers, and the whole situation with the rivers is quite sad. There are so many of them that are at least tens of kilometres long and hundreds of metres wide that many new pages will be required, and citations are missing from most of those pages that do exist. I'll probably work on that for a while. Are you by any chance familiar with the area? I found evidence of two cases where a town or village in West Bengal has the same name as a river in Bangladesh, but the river seems never to pass the town, they are Andharmanik and Haringhata. A source about West Bengal geography that is at least as helpful as Banglapedia, would be a huge help, but I don't know of one. The best approach to find river information in Banglapedia seems to be to systematically look at every Upazila page where its major rivers are listed. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:22, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The situation is the same with almost every topic related to Bangladesh, a lot of articles need to be created. I'm from Dhaka actually and don't have much knowledge about the geography of the greater Khulna region. Let me search for few Bangla sources about the rivers.--Zayeem ^(talk) 16:29, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Great, collaboration will make the task less overwhelming. Whatever you can find will undoubtedly be useful (though I'm language-challenged). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

As far as I have searched, I can confirm these two rivers flow through only Bangladesh. Haringhata's source is situated near Bagerhat and Barguna where Baleshwar River ends, it flows through Patharghata Upazila and Sarankhola Upazila, setting the boundary between Bagerhat and Barguna districts before emptying into Bay of Bengal. Have got quite a few sources on Andharmanik; recently there have been concerns raised by the locals about the drying up of this river, while the river seems to be gaining importance following the announcement of establishing a sea port in Patuakhali; I have added the sources in Andharmanik River, will expand it tomorrow. --Zayeem ^(talk) 17:39, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

So Haringhata River has a little stub page now. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:21, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

It's great to see that, thanks to the efforts of several people, the Sundarbans page has moved back to being about the whole area, rather than only about the reserve forests in Bangladesh. I hadn't expected that to happen. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Celsia

a) It was deleted because it had been created by a blocked user via a sockpuppet account. Any such articles are deleted upon discovery, because otherwise there's no real point in blocking people if they can just pretend to be new people and come back and continue contributing. b) It was about some company in Colombia. Might be notable, might not, I'm not particularly interested. No content that's really salvageable; you're free to write up anything else useful you want with that page name. DS (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Muhammad Iqbal

• Hi, I have reverted your edit of templating 'citation needed', he (the subject) did not attend the two places in same year, just a college that falls under the university, it was and is very known system in that part of the world untill now.I hope this helps. Thanks. Justice007 (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, fortunately, his poetry is easier to understand than the story of his education. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Synonym links

Why oh why do editors keep adding wikilinks to names which are clearly said in the article to be to be synonyms? It's an endless task removing them, which I see you've been doing. Keep up the good work! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Peter, your message made me smile. It's a bit of a lop-sided smile as a result of the general battering we get in wikipedia, but still a smile. Keep up the good work yourself too, or don't, as you prefer. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

.

	Happy Valentine's Day
	............................................................................................................................................................................ Hafspajen (talk) 04:18, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Hafspajen (talk) 15:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks

Much appreciation for your barnstar and the generous wording of your rationale. I am particularly gratified at receiving it from a source of such a calibre. JonRichfield (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

That's very sweet of you Jon. I'd say "keep up the good work", but that would be laying a burden on you, so I won't. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)