Talk:Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone
This article was nominated for deletion on 6 August 2014 (UTC). The result of the discussion was speedy keep. |
A fact from Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 September 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors |
Thanks Hike395
Thanks User:Hike395, for the help with the formatting on references.[1] FloraWilde (talk) 16:57, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
What information about a species should be included, and what should not, in this article.
This article is about plants growing in the extreme alpine zone. Included in the article should be species features that are generally characteristic of plants in the alpine zone, such as growing to very high altitudes; being compact, dwarfed, or miniature; being low growing, forming mats or cushions; having coloration for reflectivity; having hairs for slowing wind to reduce transpiration; and other adaptive features for high winds, low water, high sun intensity, short growing season, etc. Other features should not be included, since this would make the article too long. FloraWilde (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- See ]
- Thanks. I will read it and its sources. FloraWilde (talk) 01:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Is it alpine zone flora?
Many sources give only elevation, without specifying "alpine zone", or "above timberline". The elevation of the timberline varies from south to north. Unless it specifically says alpine zone or above the tree line, I have been combing sources for an arbitrarily chosen elevations of 12K ft. or more for inclusion. There may be common alpine zone plants excluded, so if you have knowledge that this is the case, please try to find a source and put it in the article. FloraWilde (talk) 03:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Varieties
Many alpine zone plants are varieties of plants found in multiple vegetation types. If you have sources with more specificity, please add the variety. FloraWilde (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Organization - Sections: Annual, Perennial, Grass/Sedge, Shrub, then paragraphs on families in each section, and alphabetical by genus and species in the paragraphs
This article was organized, as to ending at species, first by these sections - Annual, Perennial, Grass/Sedge, Shrub. Then inside the sections by families, and alphabetically by genus and species in the family paragraphs. What species to include was based on what was chosen by local experts to include in lay-person field guides, or by being distinguished by mention in a publications on the article topic. Suggestions for improvements on this organizing structure are invited and welcome. FloraWilde (talk) 03:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Image choice
In botany articles, images are very valuable in providing information and as a mneumonic aid to readers, especially when a long list of plants is required such as in an article on characteristic flora of a vegetation type or habitat. Images should be chosen, when available, that show features of the alpine environment (e.g., rocky or little soils), or a plant's adaptations helping it grow in the environment (e.g., low growth pattern, silvery hairs, etc.). FloraWilde (talk) 13:07, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- While images are useful, they can also be excessive. Image use policy has relevant suggestions. Images should be positioned and captioned in a way that directly enhances the text without crowding or competing with it. In my opinion, the number of images currently present is bordering on too many: any more might be excessive, and some reduction in image number and/or length of captions might be prudent. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a field guide, and the most image-dense section, Diversity and taxa, might be pruned to a single representative from each family, or perhaps composite images containing multiple confamilial species. If such images cant be found they might be created: the CC license of media on Commons generally allows for the remixing of images into collages, e.g. I made such a collage to illustrate the diversity of Myriapods. --Animalparty-- (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)]
Ferns, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and interacting animals
Please contribute so we can add this section. Someone sent me an unsourced email that I pared down to this "
Please contribute. FloraWilde (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
on using one source, and other suggestions for improving this article
Hi! Thanks for your continued contributions. However, you seem to be relying on a single source rather exclusively, namely Sierra Nevada Wildflowers, Karen Wiese, 2nd Ed., 2013. Per
Also, as a follow-up, I've noticed you don't always include full publication info for the reference (e.g. author or publisher is omitted). The full citation is important because different versions or editions of a book may have different information, and thus
- Thanks, User:Animalparty. I added sources.[2] You were correct, on careful reading, there were a few some discrepancies from source to source, which I either resolved or noted in the article. I added more content and tried to use full citations. I still have to read the cited journal sources more carefully to see if there is any information that should be in an encyclopedia article, and look for more publications. Do you have any other suggestions that might improve the article? FloraWilde (talk) 00:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, in regards to WP:QUOTE. In my view, the goal of any article should be to balance accuracy and verifiability with aesthetics and readability (e.g. not too cluttered with footnotes or nonessential images); achieving this may require a good deal of editorial creativity and discretion. For one example, see the article Plant defense against herbivory, which has achieved Good Article status, and strikes a decent balance between information and attribution.
- Yes, in regards to
- Additionally, certain sources such as a 3rd-4th grade lesson plan may not be the best sources to cite, as the information may be over-simplified for children, and/or may not have been peer-reviewed. In such cases, a college-level textbook or professional handbook might be a more reliable source to substitute. For more info, see WP:SOURCE.
- Additionally, certain sources such as a 3rd-4th grade lesson plan may not be the best sources to cite, as the information may be over-simplified for children, and/or may not have been peer-reviewed. In such cases, a college-level textbook or professional handbook might be a more reliable source to substitute. For more info, see
- Lastly, the lead section of an article (everything above the table of contents), should stand as a concise summary of the article, rather than simply an introduction or enticement to read further, and footnotes in the lead are often unnecessary as long as the information is repeated and properly attributed in the main body of the article. More detailed information is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. Cheers! --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
- A couple more notes: for Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone, you might want to omit information like identification notes or etymology for individual species, info which may be more appropriately placed on the individual species article, and may be trivial or redundant in an overview article focusing on the plant community as a whole. Also, being overprecise (e.g. "67 species... can be found in both subalpine and alpine habitats.") may invite immediate outdatedness should new species be described or re-classified: using generalities (e.g. "nearly 70 species"), provides a buffer against inconsequential numerical changes, and also may avoid overwhelming readers with numbers and fractions. --Animalparty-- (talk) 04:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for these good and thoughtful suggestions.
- Re - "not every sentence needs a footnote" - I will go back and try to reduce the amount of citations where it is not necessary. I will only leave multiple footnotes when different parts of the sentence come from different sources, and put the footnote inside the sentence, after individual phrases, when there are inconsistencies in the sources (e.g., as to max elevation range).
- Re - "omit information like identification notes or etymology for individual species". I will go back and remove excessive plant ID info that is off-topic to this particular article. I will try to retain only identification characteristics and etymologies that typify the alpine flora in general, e.g., dwarfism, mat or cushion forming, reflectivity for solar intensity, hairiness to reduce transpiration from wind, etc. This is discussed here.Talk:Flora_of_the_Sierra_Nevada_alpine_zone#What_information_about_a_species_should_be_included.2C_and_what_should_not.2C_in_this_article.
- Re - "being overprecise (e.g. "67 species...)may invite immediate outdatedness..." Very good point. I need to go back and fix this in this article, and then fix it when I see it in other articles. I will propose it as a guideline at the article template at WikiProject Plants.
- Re - "balance accuracy and verifiability with aesthetics and readability" - I will do this balancing when I finish adding in all the info and sources, then go back and pare it down. I still have a number of sources I am combing through.
- Thanks again for these good suggestions. FloraWilde (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for these good and thoughtful suggestions.
External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
- Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140821035226/http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.cesu/reports/J9W88050011-Final-Report-Sierra-Park-Lichens.pdf to http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.cesu/reports/J9W88050011-Final-Report-Sierra-Park-Lichens.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
{{source check
- If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
- If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:44, 6 May 2017 (UTC)