Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive5

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Archives for WP:PLANTS		edit
1	2004-10 – 2005-07	Ericales; example article; Orders; food/poison; plant stubs; monotypic genus redirects; cacti; Carex
2	2005-07 – 2005-11	Acer; peer review requests; common names; headers; WikiProject Fungi proposal; stub proposals
3	2005-11 – 2006-01	Hyphenated species names; common names; article titles; tropical fruits
4	2006-01 – 2006-03	silver leaf tree; flower resource; article content/taxonomy; Poa; Wikipedia 1.0 Project
5	2006-03 – 2006-05	APGII; template botanist; flora article; article titles; common names; synonyms
6	2006-05	Plant article naming conventions; common names; categories; NPOV
7	2006-05 – 2006-06	lists/categories; Cornus; tomatoes; Horticulture and Gardening WikiProject; FA candidates; hortibox; range maps; Trifolium
8	2006-06-28	userbox; project banner; plant infobox; naming conventions
9	2006-06-28 – 2006-06-29	Taxoboxes for flowering plants; APGII
10	2006-06 – 2006-07	Original research; taxoboxes; APGII; italics
11	2006-07	interwiki cleanup for moss; illustrations of plant articles
12	2006-07 – 2006-11	Maples; citrus; photos; flora common name convention; capitalization; Vinca minor
13	2006-11 – 2007-01	Biographies needed; common names; APG and taxoboxes; species templates; image quality; microformat

Contents 1 APG II and Wikipedia 2 Template: botanist 3 Flora AID nomination 3.1 Update on Flora 4 COTW Nomination 5 Plant classification 6 Synonymy mix-up?

[edit] APG II and Wikipedia

I keep seeing variations of the phrase "Wikipedia has adopted the APG II system" in various botanical articles and it continues to irritate me to no end. While I believe the classification system devised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has considerable merit, and due to its influence should certainly be acknowledged (if only to compare it to previous influential systems, e.g., the Cronquist system), the fact remains that there are numerous authors of Wikipedia articles who have varying degrees of acceptance of the APG system. Morevoer, it remains to be seen whether the details of its classification will be widely accepted, and as it is already several years old parts of it are already being modified by subsequent authors. "Adoption" of a particular system published at a particular time means that newer, and possibly better, systems will be rejected (never mind the fact that adoption of a particular system represents a non-neutral POV!) MrDarwin 20:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If I were going to make a list of things that irritate me, this would either be far down on the list or not on it. The fact is if wikipedia has to have taxoboxes and is going to categorize entries by taxonomic placement then a standard system is pretty much a must. Of course, a more balanced result would be achieved if every entry was just linked to the next higher taxon. Then, the circumscription and taxonomic placement of each taxon could be discussed in its own entry. This would be much more accurate, but would also be slower to read. As far as I can judge, a move to discontinue taxoboxes would be unpopular. Therefore, we are stuck with having a standardised (i.e. fixed and in that sense objective) system. In that case, the obvious candidate is APG II. This is a convenience in that it gives a standard to compare to, giving arguments why it is right or wrong, as the case may be. Of course, it remains important to emphasize at every opportunity that any taxonomic system is ephemeral. Brya 11:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Brya, I guess my main request is that, rather than saying that "Wikipedia has adopted..." you simply describe how something is classified under the APG system, and possibly how that differs from previous classifications. The question does of course arise as to how we should handle post-APG II classifications; I suspect that many parts of the APG system will be rejected or modified as systematists work on specific groups. (BTW you could probably tell I was in an especially irritable mood the last couple of days!) MrDarwin 14:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid I am too tired to have noticed your being irritable. I can understand your problem about my being ham-fisted about promoting APG over Cronquist, but I am afraid my policy is deliberate. This is not because I believe in APG II, as such. I can think of quite a few unkind things to say about APG (I won't say them). However, when it comes down to authoritative systems, there is no alternative.

The way I see it, the big problem is not that there is a 'standard system' but that most people are trying to use APG II and Cronquist at the same time, without noticing the difference. This is a problem of vast proportions as the wikipedia's in other languages are mirroring what happens here, with variations (as far as I can tell the German wikipedia has decided to become a publishing taxonomist itself, in assigning the eudicots the rank of class and naming it Rosopsida). I feel my approach is justified (at the risk of being ham-fisted): I am just trying to turn the juggernaut in what may not be the 'right' direction, but in what at least would be a consistent policy. As I cannot touch any entry that has a taxobox in it without starting a major war, I am trying to clean up the taxonomic entries dealing with non-current names. In doing so I am going for short, clear entries that will allow for a maximum of navigatability. Hopefully this will enable the user to make quick checks to compare the status of various taxa. Thus I may build up basic awareness of the issues.

As I said earlier I am not afraid of APG II becoming obsolete and Wikipedia being stuck with it; if ever APG III is published Wikipedia will be the first to adopt it. Don't underestimate the appeal of a shiny new gadget. Brya 20:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template: botanist

I made a suggestion for a change to template:botanist. See template talk:botanist. Brya 15:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flora AID nomination

I would like to inform you that the article Flora (plants) has been nominated in WP:AID. The article, I believe, needs serious improvements. I ask your votes, assistance and colaboration to make this a Feature article WP:FA. Thank you!! --Francisco Valverde 07:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)==

[edit] Update on Flora

Due to discussions in the WP:AID nomination it was decided to change the WP:AID nomination to the WP:COTW nomination. It was considered that Flora (plants) was really a stub, even though it has a considerable length. I invite all of you to contribute to this article. --Francisco Valverde 09:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] COTW Nomination

The stub article on the Fabales has been nominated for Collaboration of the week. It will need lots of votes to beat votes from the "Balkan Block". --EncycloPetey 09:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plant classification

Hi there, just got the editing bug and have found myself adding to plant articles. How should plant articles be named? From my background and education in this area I have always looked to the latin name first. Some articles for example the sweet pea has the latin name redirected to the common name. What is the general rule, should common names redirect to the latin named article as seems to be the case with many? Lynnathon 13:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be no consensus here. My own opinion (shared by many other Wikipedians) is that having the common name(s) redirect to the scientific name is in the long run less problematic.--Curtis Clark 15:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, how do we go about setting up a new guideline for this rule? Makes sense that it should be a firm rule that others can follow - will save a lot of confussion I would imagine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lynnathon (talk • contribs) .

I completely agree. I think that the unofficial custom is to use common names only when the common names are commonly used (pig, sweet pea, etc.). This, however, causes a whole mess of problems mainly involving ambiguoisty. My personal inclination is in agreement with yours - use latin names and redirects for common names. I do agree that there should be some sort of semi-formalized guidelines. No guideline will work for everything, as many common names refer to multiple taxa and can therefore not have simple redirects, but rather require their own pages with links to specific taxa. --NoahElhardt 00:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have a stab at setting up disambiguation pages with pictures where common names refer to multiple taxa. I am going to begin to rename articles according to their latin name and set up links/redirects for the common names. Lynnathon 18:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with NoahElhardt. After having a disagreement on the article title for Common Broom and realizing that naming conventions really can't apply to it some plant species (see Talk:Common Broom for details of that discussion), I feel the best course of action would be to divert most plant articles to their scientific names. Though perhaps we should also take a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Article title for some guidance in this area? -Rkitko 02:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Latin is a useful compromise when there is no clear winner among English names. However, if you don't feel comfortable using the latin name throughout the article text, and fall back to using a common name, that's a sign that maybe the title shouldn't be in latin either. Stan 05:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Synonymy mix-up?

Can somebody look up Echinochloa crus-galli and Echinochloa crusgalli ? Circeus 18:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The former is correct. I set the latter to redirect.--Curtis Clark 03:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but I couldn't set aside the slim possibility that they might both be somehow valid. Circeus 04:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)