User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 8

The content of articles, where different views can be explained, is less of a problem than but taxoboxes and categories, where one alternative has to be picked. Here I believe we must keep to usage in reliable secondary sources, and not chop and change with each new paper by individual specialists. The same applies to new species. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The machinations of international taxonomic convention are frequently much more complex than any of us realise. As you may be aware I am keeping a watching brief on

talk

) 15:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@

Mgoodyear: actually if you look the citations in WCSP under the "Accepted by" tab are to: Sassone, A.B., Giussani, L.M. & Guaglianone, E.R. (2014). "Beauverdia, a resurrected genus of Amaryllidaceae (Allioideae, Gilliesieae)." Systematic Botany 39: 767-775 – a pretty mainstream source. My instinct is to keep the Ipheion article, but for the present say that it's no longer a recognized genus, and give a full list of all the species and their now accepted names according to WCSP. I've started work on listing these. Peter coxhead (talk

) 17:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

True - I was looking at -

Sassone, Agostina B.; Arroyo-Leuenberger, Silvia C.; Giussani, Liliana M. (2014). "Nueva Circunscripción de la tribu Leucocoryneae (Amaryllidaceae, Allioideae)". Darwinia nueva serie 2 (2): 197–206.

However the timelines still apply! --

talk

) 01:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I will take a another look at this. I am going through the entire tribe genus by genus, reviewing the taxonomic history. The other sign of the coin is do these genera deserve their own page when they have a long history. Ipheion is perhaps a particular case, since I can buy Ipheion bulbs at the local nursery in the autumn, as you probably can too.--

talk

) 01:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I grow at least three cultivars of Ipheion uniflorum a.k.a. Tristagma uniflorum, bought under both names (won't be sure about the fourth until it reappears after the winter; it doesn't seem as hardy). I certainly support a page, but the question is whether this should be for a historically recognized genus or for a current genus. When in doubt, I tend to favour going with WCSP. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I'd forgotten that the photograph of the cultivar 'Alberto Castillo' at Ipheion uniflorum is actually from my garden. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes I have three varieties in my garden, but they were never labelled as anything other than Ipheion when I bought them, and (not unusually) the catalogues I consulted only use the term Ipheion, which is well established in horticultural usage. --

talk

) 04:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I very deliberately included both. If you remove the url, the accessdate also disappears. The latter is useful, I think, because if it is current, it is likely to be correct, while older ones I usually check because they often are not, or no longer exist. It also helps in finding archived versions for dead links. --

The logic of a DOI is that it's permanent, so you don't need an accessdate. The same applies to a JSTOR, PMID, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:59, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Theoretically yes, but have you noticed how often cited DOIs are wrong? I have had to deal with many of these recently, and I am referring to those printed on the article's front page. The other thing is the issue of accessdates, too many are in numerical form which is often ambiguous. Thankfully the template dialogue, while lacking many fields, is alphanumeric. --

talk

) 16:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Peter, I don't think it was correct to move Aloe pillansii into subspecies status. It doesn't interbreed with Aloe dichotoma at all, and it even flowers at a different time of year. There are no known hybrids. That's why they're considered separate species by SANBI etc. as well as in the new revisions which put them into the Aloidendron genus. I'd advise moving it back to species status where the article originally was. Abu Shawka (talk) 08:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

When I looked at WCSP in 2011, for Aloe it appears to have followed Govaerts, R. (2003), World Checklist of Seed Plants Database, which didn't recognize Aloe pillansii. However, it has since been updated to follow Carter, S., Lavranos, J.J., Newton, L.E. & Walker, C.C. (2011), Aloes, The definitive guide (see e.g. [1]). So all the references to WCSP in relation to Aloe species need to be checked and updated and articles adjusted accordingly. I'm happy to leave that to you. The only point I would make is that it's important to try to find secondary sources and not rely too much on primary ones, as per

WP:PSTS

.

Glad to see you back around again! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Peter; I replied directly on Wgolf's talk page, leaving a comment on the rationality of such deletions. I'll be interested to see whether anything constructive emerges. JonRichfield (talk) 13:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Peter, meet User:Luannasaurus, a new editor, local to you, and with similar interests. I'd be equally happy to introduce you to each other in real life. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:47, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

This morning I had a bit of a stunner. Flora of China and Flora of North America were both demanding passwords, not letting me onto the system without one. Eeeee, gads. I need them for information, and besides that, I have in the past year created hundreds, perhaps a few thousand links to one site or the other. Imagine all of those links suddenly going dead. Fortunately, after a few hours things went back to normal.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 18:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joseph Laferriere: let's hope it wasn't a test of a system to be implemented later... I'm concerned about the long-term future of Kew's WCSP database – over here there are reports of the likely effects of severe cuts to Kew's budget. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:58, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The spectre of funding rears its ugly head. Here, there are bills before Congress that if passed would restrict access to many parts of the Internet, meaning that people would have to pay for many sites that are now free. Many people are fighting this, but with the Republicans now in control of both houses of Congress, there are no longer any guarantees.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 12:22, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello Peter. I know that you have an interest in language and the MOS, and I wonder if you could comment on a small grammatical matter that I feel is perhaps too minor to take to the general MOS talkpage. My question is this: do you have a view on which of the versions shown in this diff is more correct? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, there may be dialect variation, but for me "exit to sea" is quite wrong; it must be "exit to the sea". Peter coxhead (talk) 21:01, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

That's interesting. I wrote the "exit to the sea" original, without even thinking about possible alternatives, and when it was first changed to "exit to sea", like yourself, I thought 'no, that's not right', but I have increasingly found myself wondering if "exit to sea" is somehow more technically correct w.r.t. the terminology used to describe rivers. I've said the phrases to myself so many times they now both sound equally right and wrong. Maybe I'll just revert back and see if the IP comes back with an explanation. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S Thanks! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

For supporting evidence, see the Google ngram. Not a common phrase, but still, "exit to the sea" is found, "exit to sea" is not.

When "sea" just means "water", then I can be use it without "the", e.g. "They moved from sea to land" = "They moved from water to land" because "water", "sea" and "land" here are general substances, not specific entities, and so are mass nouns not count nouns. So if "exit to sea" meant something like "exit to seawater" I think it would be ok. But it doesn't in this example: it's an exit to a specific sea – the sea outside the mouth of the river – not to "sea" as a general substance. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Again, thanks. It seems I should have trusted my initial reaction - though sometimes I refrain from doing that because of my own non-RP dialect, which can mislead me. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:32, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This sounds to me very much like a dialectical problem, similar to the color/colour thing. Good luck figuring it out.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 12:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding your edit to

I found

Red oak. By all means make a different fix. Peter coxhead (talk

) 22:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

That is a

WP:DIFFCAPS situation. Capitalized "Red Oak" can refer to a variety of place names; lowercase "Red oak" almost always refers to a kind of tree, and most frequently to the kind at the current redirect target. bd2412 T

23:31, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I have to say that I can't see any evidence for this. The second Google result for me for "red oak" is the capitalized entry here. (The first is the Wikipedia article on Quercus rubra.) In the UK, almost all floras and similar works capitalize species names, so that "Red Oak" is the name used in books for Quercus rubra much more often than "red oak". Peter coxhead (talk) 13:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The question is not whether "Red Oak" is ambiguous, but whether "Red oak" (or "red oak") is ambiguous. Can you find any instances at all of any of the cities on the disambiguation page being referred to as "Red oak" rather than "Red Oak"? Aside from the brewery, those are the only proper names. This is also a distinction apparent in this Google Ngram, showing that "red oak" occurs more than twice as often as "Red Oak". bd2412 T 14:15, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy that "Red Oak" should redirect to a disambiguation page. I disagree that "Red oak" should redirect somewhere else. Frequency of occurrence of the two stylizations is irrelevant to this issue. Suppose there were no places called "Red Oak". Then

Red oak

to it.

Anyway, it seems we're not likely to agree, and this discussion isn't really for my talk page now. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello Peter,

Thanks for your work - especially for fixing my mistakes. I was wondering about assessing quality - thanks for your advice there too. I'm trying to decide the quality of one of my favourites - Waratah. I'm sure it's better that Start Class. All the best to you. Gderrin (talk) 12:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

@Gderrin: well, it would be a B in my view, certainly a C, as it's a great article, except for one thing: there are no inline references. (I'm a bit surprised that Cas Liber seems to have worked on it without adding any.) It's quite a serious fault, in my view, so if I assessed it, I would leave it as "Start". According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Assessment#Quality scale, even a C article "should have some references to reliable sources", not just a list of sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

References should be easy to add....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:26, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear Peter, In agreement, though perhaps exclude the option to vary the image size. Regards, Ptelea (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes ErikHaugen, my edit which you reverted (thanks) was unintentional. Big thumb problem when scrolling down Watchlist on ipad. Sorry about that. Moriori (talk) 00:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm preparing to go through all of the Primates articles and convert them to {{Automatic taxobox}}. Per the consensus, I have set Haplorhini and Strepsirrhini to always display. I have already done some test runs with Lemur, Lemuriformes, Strepsirrhini, Fork-marked lemur, and Giant mouse lemur. I do have a couple questions, though. First, why is "Euprimates" showing up in some of the aforementioned articles? Second, since we've settled on a particular taxonomy for strepsirrhine primates, some of the ranks are not needed—such as Lorisiformes, Cheirogaleoidea, and Chiromyiformes. What should I do about them? Are they harmless, or does something need to be done. In short, we'll be using the 2-infraorder taxonomy listed on Taxonomy of lemurs.

By the way, the "update" link (under Subgroups) on the template pages is reporting that the toolserver has moved. You might want to update the links. – Maky ^« talk » 09:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

"Euprimates" shows up because Template:Taxonomy/Strepsirrhini has this as its parent. Remember that the automatic taxobox system simply follows the "Template:Taxonomy/X" hierarchy. So if you get something unexpected above taxon "X" you need to look at "Template:Taxonomy/X" and see what the parent is set to. I won't fix the Strepsirrhini issue myself, because it's better if you check all the primate taxa and make sure they are consistent. Although inconsistencies are reduced in the automatic taxobox system, they aren't eliminated altogether. Suppose that taxon W has the subtaxon X and X has the subtaxa Y and Z. Then one editor can set Y to have X as its parent and another can set Z to have W as its parent. This will produce W → X → Y and W → Z in the taxoboxes for Y and Z, even though Y and Z are at the same level in the hierarchy.

Yes, I know the subgroups system doesn't work. I think the documentation says this somewhere. I don't think that the code that was on the toolserver was migrated by its creator, so it can't be fixed, at least at present. I guess that this part of the system should simply be removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Euprimates, the system displays all taxa in between the current one and the next higher major rank. So for Lemur, it is going to display everything up the chain until the order is going to show up. (Aside: should Lemuroidea be always display?) We can squelch this behavior to remove Euprimates, but I think it will require a skip template. If we want to do this let me know and I'll do it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Erik, it also depends on how editors set the parent taxon in a taxonomy template. Suppose genus X is in subfamily Y which is in family Z. It's not necessary for "Template:Taxonomy/X" to have Y as the parent; both it and "Template:Taxonomy/Y" can be set to have Z as the parent, if Y should not be displayed in taxoboxes. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess I'm fine with Euprimates showing up in the Strepsirrhini article (and therefore also the Haplorhini article), but not so much in the Lemuriformes or Lemoroidea (Lemur) articles. I guess I will point their parents Strepsirrhini, or something similar. So it sounds like I just ignore the other unused superfamilies and infraorders...

Well, hold on. The system deliberately shows all minor taxa between the current and the next highest major rank because that is what the designers of it thought was best. Do we really care enough to override that? Should we override it on all taxoboxes? Why are these ones special? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Are these special? I doubt it. I'm just worried that any higher-level taxa articles I create and take to FAC might get criticized for having too much taxonomic information in the infobox. But we can cross that bridge when and if it comes up. – Maky ^« talk » 22:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Erik's question about Lemuroidea, I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm not planning on showing those infraorders and superfamilies in all the lemur articles. It's only meaningful at the higher levels. All systematics at that level are highly disputed, but this system was selected for use on Wikipedia because it allows the clearest and most consistent language to be used when talking about both living and extinct primate taxa, as well as their unique anatomy.

I mean on all the various lemur species/genera articles, e.g. Brown mouse lemur, should the taxoboxes include Lemuroidea? (This seems a lot more compelling to me than including Strepsirrhini on the taxobox at Brown mouse lemur.) ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals#Taxonomic ranks in taxoboxes (exception for Primates), I made the case that it's important to distinguish between the two major divisions of primates. At the species level, that's all that matters—they are either strepsirrhine or haplorhine primates, not which superfamily they belong to. I think superfamily matters at the family level, but that's all. – Maky ^« talk » 22:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that discussion. Your note here is in reply to me, but I'm not sure if you are trying to explain to me why having Strepsirrhini in the taxobox is more useful than having Lemuroidea, or if you have a different point? Or what your thoughts are on including Lemuroidea in all the lemur taxoboxes? In any case, I think what you outline here is what you have caused to happen with your changes from a few hours ago. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Anyway, please keep an eye on what I'm doing over the next few days. If I'm doing anything wrong, just let me know. I'll be monitoring the conversation here and return here if I have any other questions. – Maky ^« talk » 19:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Upon closer inspection, I see what Erik was saying. It would be ideal for Lemuriformes to show up in Lemuroidea (Lemur), which means it must be the parent. And likewise, Lemuriformes must have Strepsirrhini as the parent. How complex would a skip template be, and how would it work? I've noticed that at the family and genus level, this problem goes away, as Erik predicted. In other words, it's only a problem at these higher levels.

Well, currently it does show up on Lemur, because it is the parent. This isn't what I'm saying. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

"How complex would a skip template be" – one possibility here, if Euprimates is really objectionable, would be to have an extra Strepsirrhini template that is used as the parent for Lemuriformes/etc. This template's parent would be Primates. The regular Strepsirrhini, used only at Strepsirrhini and perhaps as a parent for extinct Strepsirrhini subtaxa, would still have Euprimates as its parent. This way, Strepsirrhini would still list Euprimates, but Lemuriformes would not have Euprimates in its taxobox. Similarly for Haplorhini. We do this in various other places to keep e.g. Dinosauria off of Bald eagle, and to deal with limitations in WP's template system when the chain of template substitutions is too big. Here's an example, there are several: Template:Taxonomy/Eumaniraptora/skip. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll have to think on this... – Maky ^« talk » 22:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, I'm beginning to rethink the Lemuroidea question now. It might be beneficial to let the lemur and lorisoid families point to their superfamily, especially since it won't affect articles for genera and species... but that might require discussion and consensus... (See Cheirogaleidae as an example, and then see their two developed children: Fork-marked lemur and Giant mouse lemur.) Your thoughts? – Maky ^« talk » 19:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure exactly what you're proposing. Would you spell it out please? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Simple: Lemur families show the superfamily (Lemuroidea). Below that level, superfamily is not shown. The only extra taxon rank shown would be Strepsirrhini (as mentioned above). – Maky ^« talk » 22:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

OK; I see what you mean. I don't understand why, but I think I see what you are suggesting here. (In any case it appears to be the status quo at this point.) ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why I have gotten so confused by your questions. I'm sorry this has been so confusing. I guess I just don't understand what you're suggesting. Do you want to see superfamily Lemuroidea listed in the taxobox all lemur articles? If so, why?

Sorry if I've been confusing! I'm mostly just trying to figure out what everyone wants the taxoboxes to look like so I can help set up the templates to make it happen. (Also I want to keep track of how the templates are used for various reasons.) I don't have strong feelings either way about either of these questions. I just asked since we were talking about putting more things in taxoboxes and Lemuroidea seemed more compelling than Haplorhini/etc. "why?" – so that it will be easy to see from the taxobox that the species/etc is a lemur. Why did you want Strepsirrhini/Haplorhini in the taxobox? Same reason, I guess? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I would love that. However, I'm hesitant because I'm worried it would be seen as an attempt to bloat the taxobox. Distinguishing lemurs and lorisoids within Strepsirrhini would be good, as long as it wouldn't force the infraorder Lemuriformes to be visible also. (That taxonomy is highly controversial, as I note in each article that mentions it.) Everyone agrees on the superfamilies, though. So if I correctly understand how this template works, then we may need a skip template to make sure Lemuriformes only shows at the superfamily level... If so, can you please help? – Maky ^« talk » 18:08, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Either way, the handling of Euprimates seems more convoluted now that I've had time to look at it. There appears to be two competing taxonomies:

Dermoptera, †Plesiadapiformes) or Primatomorpha (including Dermoptera and Primates) with Primates containing †Plesiadapiformes and Euprimates. In Google Scholar, the use of Euprimates (the latter) seems to win out, but the Wiki articles seems to favor putting everything in Primatomorpha (the former). If we were to switch to using Euprimates, the featured article Primate might have to be restructured, partly rewritten, or moved. (The complication is that the popular term "primates" typically refers to Euprimates under that classification.) Your thoughts on how to proceed? To be honest, I have neither the time nor the desire to make such a fix to the Primate article right now. – Maky ^« talk 

» 14:36, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

That is interesting; thanks! I have no opinion at this point about which to use; if there's consensus among primate workers for one or the other then why not use it? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

In that case, since

Euprimates is currently a redirect to Primate, I'm just going to point the parent of Strepsirrhini and Haplorhini to Primates. If someone wants to challenge this taxonomy (and is therefore willing to make the necessary changes), then that will be their problem and we can address the issue at that time (if necessary). – Maky ^« talk 

» 18:08, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:15, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Peter, yes, by "between the current one and the next higher major rank" I meant of course the taxonomy templates currently linking those two. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Infraspeciesbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:40, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Why this edit? Was there consensus to depopulate these cats? Guettarda (talk) 13:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

These others are still populated. Guettarda (talk) 13:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but those categories all have a reasonable number of articles in them. There has been a consensus that "small categories" should be avoided; I've generally been quite conservative compared to some editors in interpreting this as 10 or more entries. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Peter - I see you have occasionally edited at Nutmeg, but I wasn't sure whether you had the article on your watchlist. I wanted to ask you about two edits:

1) This one [2]. I remembered a similar edit being undone back in November: [3]. Someone has added it back in again.

2) This one [4] (fiddled with in one or two subsequent edits). I don't think it's an improvement in the prose.

It is on my watchlist, but I don't get round to checking all of the changes (I really should prune the list!). I entirely agree that these edits should be undone. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you about this again. (I was away from editing for a week.) I looked at these edits again. I was thinking I could just revert back to your last edit, but there is one other intervening edit (changing "marijuana" to "cannabis"), and I wasn't sure whether that was a good edit or not.

talk

) 02:48, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your judgement re the last "good" version and I did decide to revert to the one I last edited – the added material is not appropriate for the English Wikipedia in my view and/or not sufficiently reliably sourced. The use of "marijuana" occurs in an unsourced bit; I'd use that word rather than "cannabis" if the source did, but there wasn't one that I could see. So I changed the wikilink to avoid the redirect, and left a "citation needed" tag. Unfortunately articles on plants commonly used as food seem to attract well-meaning but unhelpful and unsourced edits. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:27, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

That's why WP is fortunate to have knowledgeable people such as yourself as editors. Thanks for making the edit.

talk

) 16:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)