User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 6

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Hi Peter, I just created {{

The team template should maybe call {{

Ruiz y Pavón article implies that the team is an entry. I've come across at least one more article on Wikipedia about a team of botanists (can't remember the title at the moment though). Plantdrew (talk

) 17:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

@Plantdrew — I tried putting "Ruiz & Pav." (just like this, but without quotations) into the IPNI author search field for "Standard form" and got both authors. This may lead to a way to fix the template so it can work properly. Hamamelis (talk) 04:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

my Internet access is intermittent just now (house rewiring). Will look at this when I can. Not convinced at present that there are "teams" as authorities. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, see http://kiki.huh.harvard.edu/databases/botanist_index.html . They use the term "team" as a search filter. Maybe just their handy term for it though. Hamamelis (talk) 01:09, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Here is the result when you query "Ruiz" and restrict to "Team" Hamamelis (talk) 01:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• Technical issue first: in the link for a search, you have to "escape" spaces and should also do so for ampersands. So whereas you can type "Ruiz & Pav." into the search box, the link should be http://www.ipni.org/ipni/advAuthorSearch.do?find_abbreviation=Ruiz+%26+Pav. I've now fixed {{botanist}} so that {{botanist|Ruiz & Pav.}} works as it should. (However it doesn't at present alter the wording to be plural, which could easily be done if "&" is present and it's thought desirable to deal with teams.)
• Harvard's database clearly does use the concept of "team", but IPNI is now the definitive follow-on to Brummitt & Powell (1992), and as far as I can tell, it does not consider teams. You just get entries for each author separately. So I don't think that we should provide for teams. Would we have team entries in the various "List of Botanists by Author Abbreviation" articles?
• "Ruiz y Pavón" is not the right article title in the English Wikipedia (even if an article is justified: should we have articles on every set of botanists who jointly named plants?). If the article exists here, it should be at "Ruiz and Pavón". Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I can find out about the term "team". To answer your question: for that list, no in my opinion. But potentially there could be a new article expressly for lists of teams(?). However, I'm not keen myself to create any such article.

Agree, it's a poor choice for an article name; it was created by a user based in Chile (thus the "y" in the title), and done very sloppily. When I happened upon it, it was such a hodgepodge I felt compelled to try and organize it as best I could. Finally, after I felt it was at least not horrible, I gave up because these two botanists named a huge number of taxa together, and it seemed endless.

I'm not wed to having the team template if a fix can be made that actually alters the text when an ampersand is inserted. And honestly don't care about the word "team", but this article exists, as do parallel articles about each of the so-called 'team'-members. So, what do you think about phrasing it the way it formerly was in the article ("The standard author abbreviation Ruiz & Pav. is used to indicate them as joint authors when citing a botanical name."), or something like it? We could change "...abbreviation... is..." to "...abbreviations... are..." I don't have a preference whether a fix is in this template or the original, or {{botanist2}}.

The last option would be to not have any form of {{botanist}} in the article at all. Pending the correct, if any, use of "team", I think it should be removed.

Thanks for your expertise and frankness. Hamamelis (talk) 12:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to criticize your work on this article; you've certainly improved it from the original.

On reflection, I think there shouldn't be a botanist template at all in the article – at least not in the present form of the template.

• Ruiz y Pavón
  ) not being able to find any reference to the "joint" abbreviation in Brummitt & Powell, so there's no evidence for the team abbreviation in the two main sources for botanical author abbreviations, the paper Brummitt & Powell and the online IPNI.
• The template puts the article into Category:Botanists with author abbreviations which doesn't seem to me quite right; the separate articles on the two botanist belong there. There should be some kind of match between the category and the entries in the various "List of Botanists by Author Abbreviation" articles, but we agree the pair should not be in the list. If {{BotanistTeam}} remains available, I think it shouldn't categorize the article in this way.

So I'll change the article to simply state the abbreviations for each author, with separate sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

This seems like the right approach. I stuck the botanist template in there as a quick way to get the abbreviations sourced (which didn't quite work). With better sourcing, I'm happy to see the template go. Plantdrew (talk) 21:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your agreement. See

Talk:Ruiz y Pavón for the issue of the name of the article. Comments there much appreciated! Peter coxhead (talk

) 22:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. I still would like to know as much as possible about the use in this sense of "team", just because it would be informative to know. I haven't e-mailed Mr. Gandhi yet, but did do a search of the IPNI site and found plenty examples of them using this term. The question for me is the formal use/definition, if there is any. I knew you weren't criticizing Peter, I just explained my history with the article to show that my involvement was limited to being an editor who happened upon what looked like a disaster, and that I was performing a sort of triage. It just turned out that the process was too lengthy for me, and I threw up my hands. I rely on your unwavering good temperament, or else wouldn't be asking for your help:) Thanks again. Hamamelis (talk) 14:47, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about IPNI, but most of the "teams" at Harvard are botanists who collected plants together (collecting teams), not botanist who coauthored papers together (publication teams). There's some overlap of course; Ruiz and Pavon collected together and published together. Plantdrew (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, note that the Harvard source is a herbarium. The concept of "collecting teams" makes good sense for herbarium specimens. There are abbreviations used in describing collections and in herbarium sheets. Thus looking at a paper on a new Roscoea species, I see references like "Grierson & Long 116 (E)" used to identify a particular specimen the authors have seen. Perhaps "R & P" or some variant occurs in this context? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

H.B.K. is a redirect, but is another case of an abbreviation for a authorial team. I don't think it's in Brummit & Powell (or IPNI), but this abbreviated citation form for these authors is definitely used in the botanical literature. Plantdrew (talk

) 19:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

A comment because I noticed this in passing: the current redirect seems appropriate because of Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, Humboldt and Bonpland were the collectors, but it is Kunth who (after Willdenow's death early in the project) wrote the botanical descriptions that appear in Nova genera et species plantarum. Older works would list the three authors of the work in that way, but it is now usual to follow the Code of Nomenclature in citing the author responsible for the descriptions, namely Kunth. A citation for the history is McVaugh, R. (1955). "The American Collections of Humboldt and Bonpland, as Described in the Systema Vegetabilium of Roemer and Schultes". Taxon. 4 (4): 78–86.

doi:10.2307/1217774. Sminthopsis84 (talk

) 13:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that clarifies why there are some "collective" or "team" abbreviations around in the literature. It seems clear that these are now obsolete and that we should only use or link the individual abbreviations as per IPNI. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:36, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For contributions to plant sciences talk ) 23:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks. But you've done some great work lately. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:45, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi! There have been new developments. We need to continue the review. Sorry if you are busy, but can you return to the review soon? Sainsf <^>_{Talk all words} 06:01, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to be able to do anything much for a few days! Did you have any particular issues in mind which need sorting? I've only been stepping in to sort out some "technical" stuff (e.g. ordering as per

WP:Plants/Template, consistent style for refs). Peter coxhead (talk

) 15:20, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

None, just the issue that you raised. You were helping with the citations, I just supported that you should use cite templates throughout the article. Thanks for your contribution, and do it as per your convenience. And you may add more of your own comments. Anyway, Merry Christmas :) ! Sainsf <^>_{Talk all words} 07:39, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

And congratulations on reaching GA --

talk

) 15:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It's you that needs the congratulations, not me! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Did you see that it is being suggested we go on to get FA status? --

talk

) 22:53, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes; I'm never quite sure how the extra criteria for FA status are applied to plant articles. It would be good to get one or more plant editors who have worked on FA articles to comment (e.g. User:Casliber and User:Ucucha who have a lot of FA Protea articles). Peter coxhead (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll take a look. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for helping on tables at Cucurbita. I hope I'm not bugging you too much, but on the talk page C.Chap thought it would be good to have countries left aligned (maybe trim the column down too), while leaving the production right aligned. I've tried several previews of this but the align text always shows up as text in the table. Any help appreciated. HalfGig talk 23:37, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

"Condensed" versions are at User:Peter coxhead/Sandbox2. Note that there's a problem with the originals: if you sort, the "total" row sorts as well, and it shouldn't. This is also fixed now in my versions. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:45, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

However, putting the last two sets of data into one table forces both to sort together, which isn't quite what is needed, I think. They would be better as two tables, but side by side. I need to think how to do this (if it's possible!). Peter coxhead (talk) 14:47, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

There probably is with divisions or something. Thanks for all this help! Let's copy the new ones to the article when you're done. HalfGig talk 22:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, a <div> seems to be the answer. I've copied my versions into Cucurbita; see what you think. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

		The Helping Hand Barnstar
		For great performance in helping people learn wiki ways, especially tables and flora. Awarded with bar. Great job on the Cucurbita tables, but I don't see what's making the flags left-align. HalfGig talk 21:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the award! The default in table cells is left align, so you don't need to do anything to achieve it – does that answer your question? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Thanks again. HalfGig talk 11:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

We are colliding - so need to be a bit cautious in keeping edit box open --

Good idea re book x-referencing - but there are a lot of those!! --

talk

) 18:14, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Fixed the other chapter in this book - but need to figure out how to do the other book (Wilson) --

talk

) 18:27, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

fixed them all --

talk

) 18:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I realized we were editing in parallel, so I gave up after I'd finished a particular fix. I learnt this way of handling multiple chapters in the same book from Stemonitis so far as I recall. One oddity is that by default the {{cite}} templates add a full stop at the end, but {{harvtxt|...}} does not. So to get fully consistent formatting, you need to use "{{cite book |... |chapter=...}} In {{harvtxt|...}}." Peter coxhead (talk) 10:02, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I hope I didn't frighten you away! Anyway I have put

No, you didn't. I don't have much time for Wikipedia right now – some real life things to do. I'll try to keep an eye on any review comments. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes - we all need to be realistic! --

talk

) 13:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

So we're going to visit Anatomy, Chemistry, .... Zoology and add "An anatomist (subst. as needed) is a person who practises this science.", etc, to every single one? There was a random boldface addition by an IP so now we have a new policy? I'm not convinced that would be a great idea. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:29, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

My logic was that

Botanist redirects to Botany. Generally when related terms redirect in this way, e.g. when a plant article is at the scientific name with a redirect at the English name, both terms are in bold in the lead. So it seems reasonable to me. If the other sciences have similar redirects, I would think that the same could apply, but each case needs to be taken on its own merits, e.g. "chemist" has a wider meaning. Peter coxhead (talk

) 01:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations on winning the Natural History Shield

	The Natural History Shield
	For great service to Wikipedia in the area of Natural History. Your efforts in improving these areas and helping other users is greatly needed and appreciated! HalfGig talk 15:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Your thoughts on Biological classification?

Hi Peter, would you have time to take another look at

I've commented there, but the real problems are (as we've discussed before):

• inconsistent usage in reliable sources
• the very muddled set of articles in the English Wikipedia covering taxonomy, systematics, nomenclature, classification, etc.

This seems to me an area where the bottom-up growth of the encyclopaedia hasn't worked well. But a top-down plan seems to be a Wikipedia heresy! Peter coxhead (talk) 15:34, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree! The English Wikipedia is very muddled when it comes to articles relating to taxonomy, nomenclature, and systematics, etc. I think you, me and

taxonomy (general) and taxonomy (biology) should be separate articles. Yet, for some reason, "biological taxonomy" and "biological classification" are currently two independent articles—doesn't this strike you as unnecessarily redundant and confusing to readers? --JSquish (talk

) 00:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi JSquish (and please pardon me for butting in on your talk page, Peter): a problem here that you may not have seen is that in the not-too-distant past there was a rather fierce battle on the very idea that you mention, with one side (if I correctly grasped their point of view) claiming that taxonomy as a general field should be expunged from wikipedia and alpha taxonomy is the only legitimate meaning for the term taxonomy (again, I may have misunderstood, but that's what I thought they were saying). The moral that I draw from that is that we have to move very slowly, but progress has occurred. I hope that you won't be discouraged by the reverting of your recent edits. A discussion that I find interesting has started at talk:Alpha taxonomy, which seems to have two meanings, but the previous coverage was off-topic. Peter mentioned that page, and I think that getting that one right may be a useful point of attack on the problem. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thinking about it some more, the well-sourced section at Taxonomy (biology)#Definition may be the key here. It says that the core of biological taxonomy (agreed by most but not all sources) is the conception (which I take to include diagnosis/delineation, description and identification), nomenclature and classification of groups of organisms. This definition has, as Sminthopsis84 notes above, been fought over, and is certainly not universally agreed by all sources, but seems to have stood in the English Wikipedia for a while now and is probably the best we can do. On this definition, biological classification is part of biological taxonomy, but they aren't the same. Thus alpha taxonomy, taken as the conception of the primary units of biological taxonomy (species) is not concerned with classification; traditional Code-based nomenclature reflects classification but is deliberately not prescriptive of any particular arrangement. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with

On 24 March 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Liliaceae, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that when the tulip trade reached Antwerp in Belgium in 1562, they were mistaken as vegetables? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Liliaceae. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Thanks for this Victuallers (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

...And I'll make good use of it!! Hamamelis (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

That is a good idea. Is there something like this for alt. vernacular names, or do you we just use {{R from alternative name}}? I.e., is there something more bio specific than that template?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  06:41, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I assume you mean redirects from one vernacular name to a page at a different vernacular name (not a differently styled version of the same name). If so, I think there's nothing more specific than {{R from alternative name}}. It's pretty uncommon with plants, so a more specific template hardly seems needed, but it might be useful for animals. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I gave a clear rationale for linking to a dispute here. You reverted it with an edit summary that is an obvious

My advice to you is the same as to anyone, and the way we have generally been working. Propose changes first and seek consensus. Don't try to fight battles of any kind, old or new. Seek the maximum consensus. Where there is no consensus, work constructively with divergence and difference.

On the specific issue of English names for plants, plant editors happily work together with pages in both styles and that's how it will continue, so long as there is no consensus. It may not be ideal, but it's ok as it is. Just leave it.

What is incredibly disruptive is to alienate expert editors by constantly pushing petty style guidelines. We desperately need more knowledgable content editors. I have seen too many botanists driven away by what they see as insistence on rules and styles alien to their traditions and conventions. Readers need content, not style! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Your characterization of my edit as not in keeping with the spirit of the existing document and attempting to improve it is false from my viewpoint, simply subjective regardless, highly colored by your own bias on the issue, and appears to be another assumption of bad faith by you. I agree with you that major changes should be proposed; my edits are attempts to undo major changes that wer enot proposed and did not have consensus. The diea that there's a consensus to have NCCAPS contradict MOS and even disagree with NCCFAUNA is absurd. You know just as well as I do that particular individuals with veryh particular axes to grind have been manipulating these pages to gradually diverage from MOS and reflect their own viewpoints, because they can't get consensus for them at MOS, watchlisted by an enormous number of editors, only minor sub-guideline pages virtually no one pays any attention to. This is a

WP:FRINGE. And it's really, really geeky: They can't just use word-processors, but have to learn XHTML, wikipmarkup, parserfunctions and a templating language. Then an enormous soup of complicated, everchanging rules. Style tweaks are the least of their concerns here. It's a really cheap shot to suggest that I'm a big lame-o and am personally driving away high-end academics just because I'm not shutting up like a good little peon on a issue you simultaneously declare to be trivial yet devote enormous amounts of time to being contrary and combative on. I am not buying it, and I don't think anyone else would either.

Readers need content (less and less, the more we write) and they also need style, because it helps keep that content parseable and consistently interpretable, as well as sanely editable, and the more consistency there is the less verbal combat there is. MOS has definitively ended 99% of the style and grammar fights that were chronically erupting here. You don't think about it much because they're just GONE. If MOS were deleted today, just no longer here and not being consistently obeyed on just about everything, several thousands disputes per DAY would erupt over style/grammar/spelling/punctuation matters that are forestalled because of that guideline and its clarity, and, yes, its prescriptiveness. If you don't believe that readers need style, then quit devoting your time to style debates. You're one of the top-10 editor/commentators on this stuff. You're being that enormous dude stuffing himself full of cupcakes and double cheeseburgers, with his huge gut hanging out from under... his "No Fat Chicks" T-shirt.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  13:06, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, you really to need to quit following me around from page to page reverting everything I do or exhorting others to do so. See

WP:HOUNDING.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  13:06, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

You put up straw men, such as not having a MOS. This is simply not what I have ever said. Of course we need a MOS. Of course we need style guidance. But in many areas we respect diversity of view: allowing different ENGVARs, citation styles, etc. All I argue is that there needs to be more such respect, e.g. for the style for the English names of organisms, the different punctuation styles in different ENGVARs, or the different conventions in different branches of learning. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Consensus does not require unanimity. Near-unanimity is plenty sufficient. One project is a hold-out on this. You admit yourself that neither the insects nor the botany projects actually even have any local consensus to defy

WP:WINNING

.

The funny thing is, I'm not even going after that birds stuff (other editors with no connection to "MOS regulars" are doing that, at RM, etc., and they'll eventually prevail because ; I'm just trying to get NC:FAUNA, NC:FLORA, and NC:CAPS to stop contradicting each other and MOS, and to stop trying to being anti-MOSes giving article content advice at all. I means, seriouslyh, most of what you drafted as replacement text at

WP:ARBATC

came down for a reason. Both sides of disputes like this know (and are on notice) that they get overheated about it.

I'm not sure why you would expect my editing interests to be significantly different all of a sudden just because I was away for a while. I still followed a lot of this, but most just bit my tongue, except to respond to XfDs that would do harm to stuff I'd worked on significantly, and to directly address the

WP:AE

admin abuse issue that led to my withdrawal.

I'm not advancing an argument that you personally want to get rid of MOS. I'm observing that MOS and its strife-reduction effect across the entire project are under-appreciated and even unnoticed, including by people who make an argument that when an occasional thorny issue arises and some self-selecting group of editors wants to rebel against MOS, that MOS is somehow being more problem that it is worth.

I asked for evidence of expert biologist editors quitting the project because of style disputes. Now you're saying it's disputes in general, but you've added an assertion that MOS having a rule on some other style issue is making some other, broader group of editors want to leave. So: {{

dispute

is almost the only way anything gets done. It's a can't-make-an-omelet-without-cracking-some-eggs problem.

This is one of the worst things we can do: "listen very carefully and respectfully to what those WikiProjects say". There is no way to limit projects' members to qualified, or even sane people, nor to verify qualifications. Treating wikiprojects as anything other than some misc. editors using a page to coordinate collaboration on a topic of mutual interest is the source of a large measure of the strife on WP. The insularity we already have, with projects acting as if sovereign entities and effectively exerting

WP:CONLEVEL among other places and it's still going on unabated. Don't be an enabler of this, please. [Totally different discussion: Some kind of WMF-managed, credentials-verified topical/field-specific "Advisory Boards" system could be proposed; I might even get behind that. But wikiprojects are a menace, and I say that as the creator of several of them.]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  04:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We will have to agree to disagree. You say I'm not inclined to drop matters I see as crucial to WP's future just because resolving them involves some disputation. This is precisely and exactly the difference between us. To say that ensuring that the MOS enforces some particular kinds of style (while allowing others to vary widely) is in any way crucial to WP's future seems to me simply ridiculous and in practice harmful. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We can agree to disagree, but I have to point out that you're making the same kind of misrepresentation you accused me of below. I've never said that capitalization was particularly important. Rather, the issue is that of the notion that the way to change consensus here is to form a

WP:RM discussions that were clearly in favor of move getting rejected on the false basis of a MOS exception), and reverse themselves on compromises they already agreed to (a big one being bird caps in ornithology articles only - they've been pushing it in all natural-science articles in which birds are mentioned, e.g. geographical ones). Appeasement has not worked.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:09, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I would say that all of the activities you describe (battlegrounding, diva tactics, tendentious editing, etc.) are true of both "sides". The fact that you call it "appeasement" is significant in itself. You mention plants. At WP:PLANTS, we have different views, largely due to national connections (actually much less for "English" plants, since there are few endemics, than for Australian plants), and live happily with articles consistently in one style or the other. There's absolutely no reason why the MOS can't say that capitalizing species names should be consistent within an article, and vary (if there is an article level consensus) between articles. This would not be "appeasing" either "side" since it's not what some WP:BIRDS editors want nor what you appear to want. It would be a reasonable compromise, in line with other MOS guidelines, and stand a chance of gaining true consensus.

Sadly, I have concluded that neither "side" is interested in

WP:CONSENSUS on this matter – which, I would point out, is a policy. Peter coxhead (talk

) 08:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: you wrote You're one of the top-10 editor/commentators on this stuff. Can you tell me where you got this interesting statistic from? It certainly surprises me! Comparing [2] with [3] suggests to me that I spend very little of my time on editing WP or WP talk pages compared to you, particularly when you account for the time spent on my user pages being largely work on article material. So it does seem a little like the pot calling the kettle black! :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

It was not a statistical argument, it was an intentionally hyperbolic "WTF?" observation. You can't simultaneously claim this is just unimportant style-obsessive trivia everyone [but you] needs to just drop, while also popping up constantly in the debate everywhere it arizes plus also claiming that it's a crucial matter with regard to retention of expert editors. Either it's important or it's not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  02:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Again you are misrepresenting me. The style in itself is trivia. Being intolerant of style variation and constantly trying to force a style on reluctant editors is not trivia. I will continue to oppose the latter. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

But that's what you and

WP:BUREAUCRACY, and other concerns.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No one but a few dozen editors on the whole project wants to capitalize that stuff, and it causes endless dispute. I don't think that any of us really knows how many editors would support capitalisation in some circumstances, because many have never engaged in the MOS talk pages. I can only say that as I work on plant articles, I see a significant number of highly respected editors using capitalized forms, often for national connection reasons. We need to attract more editors, of all views, to comment on this and other matters in the MOS. It wasn't a point I had ever made, but I agree with those who say that the current MOS is just a local consensus, as much as WP:BIRDS or any other WikiProject pages. Noetica was fond of pointing out that the hyphen/dash guidance was based on a 70 editor discussion (I may be wrong about the exact number). This is a ridiculously small number in relation to the number of active Wikipedia editors.

I have never said we shouldn't have a MOS, nor that people should ignore it. It's a gross misrepresentation of my views to say that I am "anti-MOS" in any way. I'm a chartered IT professional; I believe in following rules. But in Wikipedia, they must command consensus, not just "majority wins all". I have argued that just as the MOS allows variability in some areas, it can, and in my view should, allow consistent and principled variation in this area. Thus the eight pages listing the British flora should use capitalized English names, because this is the norm for floras in the UK, and because the names given are almost entirely derived from a capitalized source which has recently re-iterated the reasons for its capitalization. I support the pages on the endemic Australian flora, such as Banksia, using capitalized forms because I'm told that it's the standard there too. I don't capitalize cactus names, for example (I did a lot of work on Cactus and connected pages). But I'm sure I've said all this before.

You have on a number of occasions said that capitalizing English species names is odd, "wrong", triggers astonishment, etc. Well, it may be the case for you, but isn't for me. I prefer the capitalized style, but write happily in both (most recently capitals in a contribution to the new Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country – a vast tome, and definitely not a field guide!). Judging by the number of editors who add English names to articles about American plants, Indian plants, etc., capitalization is natural for a substantial proportion. The tone in which you make this point is (mildly) offensive and definitely alienating. Capitalization is a style. It's now an uncommon style in serious generalist publications which Wikipedia should resemble (I take the National Geographic, for example, as a publication whose style is worth emulating), but it's still a common style in other "middle level" serious publications (not academic journals, which we don't seek to emulate). I and other serious amateur botanists in the UK would be surprised if a UK flora didn't capitalize species names and would naturally expect a Wikipedia article about the UK flora to do the same.

The

WP:ASTONISH argument would carry more weight if it were applied consistently, and not used selectively. There's very clear evidence that US readers are surprised by LQ in articles in US English, and regularly "correct" it. The same issue shows up the carefully selective use of style guide advice: essentially 100% of style guides which relate to US English advocate TQ. If it's ok for the MOS to over-ride style guides on this issue, why not on others? My very clear impression is that the relatively small number of editors who worked on the MOS in the beginning came to a local consensus on a number of contentious issues, and are now committed to defending that consensus as though any change would be the end of Wikipedia as they know it. Peter coxhead (talk

) 07:53, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm a complete novice here (and in fact rarely log in these days), but I found your name on the history of one of the pages referred to from this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintbrush_lily You seem to be well-informed and experienced enough to add a few notes on each of the pages referred to here just to relate the two, for those readers who find their way to one but not the other. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to add it to your list of "things to do"?

Cheers (with apologies if this is not the right place to contact you about this kind of thing - I could not find a way of messaging you privately.) — Preceding

I've added a hatnote to the two main linked articles, pointing to Paintbrush lily for other plants called by this name. I'm pretty sure that some other species of Haemanthus and Scadoxus should also be listed. I'll check. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

"Blood lily" should also lead to a list of plants, rather than be a redirect to Haemanthus, I think. No time to do this now. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Peter. Yes, I noticed that there were some crossed wires there too. I'm just not confident enough in my editing capabilities (and am lacking in botanical knowledge - would have to rely on what I could find) to offer to do it myself.