Talk:Bulrush

WP:DABCONCEPT

I have made the primary topic of this term into a brief article, per WP:DABCONCEPT. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately this has had the effect of creating a duplicate page. Until May 2012 Bulrush was a dab page. This was moved to Bulrush (disambiguation), leaving a redirect at Bulrush. The changes create a second, superfluous dab, duplicating the original. If a dab article really is needed at Bulrush (which does not seem obvious to me), the logical course would be to move Bulrush (disambiguation) back again.

I have therefore reverted this page back to a redirect. Richard New Forest (talk) 12:35, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's not quite a duplicate page if the plant set index is treated the primary topic at the base title, and the dab covers the non-plant concepts. I didn't do much with the set index, but the advantage of going with a set index for plants sharing a common names is that it doesn't have to conform with WP:MOSDAB; photos and brief descriptions are getting beyond what is allowed in a dab, but will do more to help the reader find the plant they are interested in than the mimimal MOSDAB style (the big downside of going with a set index is the loss of bot patrols for incoming links). There may not be enough plants to really merit a split between plant SIA and non-plant DAB in the ase of bulrushes, but I think the split makes a little more sense with the pairs Sycamore/Sycamore (disambiguation), and Yew/Yew (disambiguation). On the other hand, Cowslip/Cowslip (disambiguation) is one I'd lean towards merging. Plantdrew (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't really see having to conform with MOSDAB necessarily as a disadvantage: the MOS is there for a reason. The page that was here was in all meaningful respects a dab, and everything it contained was duplicated on the dab page, or could easily be; it wasn't really a set index (and if it quacks like a duck, it should have to conform to MOSDUCK...). Of the other pairs you give Sycamore and Yew include only dab material and I can see no more purpose for them as separate from their dabs than for this one. (As far as I can see Cowslip (disambiguation) has always been a redirect to Cowslip, which is a dab already – did you perhaps mean another?)

On reflection though I think on balance it would be better to have this dab at Bulrush.

If there were genuine encyclopaedic material about plant bulrushes in general, then I would certainly agree that an encyclopaedic article or a set index would be needed. At the moment I don't see any such material which is not already covered in the various proper articles. Richard New Forest (talk) 15:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Oops. I meant Cowslip (vernacular name) (which is now a redirect), as something I tried to merge with Cowslip. After lengthy discussion at Talk:Paw Paw, I was understanding that MOSDAB prefers that blue links should incorporate the disambiguation page title. E.g. this page should have redirecting links like Bulrush (Scirpus), or Cowslip should have Cowslip (European plant)/Cowslip (North American plant). A list of blue-linked scientific names isn't what MOSDAB is going for. Another MOSDAB issue we've come across is partial title matches. See Talk:Oak (disambiguation); for some discussion on that. There are many short form common names that are ambiguous; longer unambiguous common names also exist, but people commonly use the shorter ambiguous names.

I don't see how having four entries with a scientific name followed by "a genus in the sedge family (Cyperaceae)" helps people figure out which plant is the bulrush they are concerned with. The various bulrushes are particularly tough to distinguish, and it might take a couple sentences of text to create an entry that helps the lay reader figure out which bulrush is which. MOSDAB doesn't allow extensive descriptions. Including photos of the various bulrushes might be even more helpful to the average reader, but MOSDAB doesn't allow this either.

This DAB is MOSDAB compliant for the most part (leaving aside the issue of not including the term "bulrush" in the blue-links), but the DAB is pretty useless in helping the reader find the article they are looking for. Adding text and photos to more clearly distinguish the various bulrushes to the typical reader is going beyond what MOSDAB would allow. Plantdrew (talk) 16:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Do be bold, but normal WP etiquette would expect a discussion before reversion. Never mind though.

Your point is a valid one, that just a scientific name isn't always enough for users to tell which bulrush they're after. However, this isn't a valid argument against inclusion in the dab, because MOS Dab does allow descriptions, if they're necessary to distinguish the articles. What it doesn't allow is encyclopaedic information, and we're not talking about that here. Anyway, your confused user will not stop here, but will continue to the various linked pages and find out more there.

I don't think you're right that dab links (blue or not) must incorporate the headword. Dab entries do normally start with a link, and it does usually include the headword, but neither of these is essential. MOS:DAB includes a number of examples which bear this out (worth a read generally).

This page still looks like a dab, and I still don't think you've explained why it shouldn't be one. Perhaps the simplest test is this: is there encyclopaedic information which applies to "bulrush" which would not be included in one or other of the articles linked by a dab? For example, there might be a general concept of "bulrush" which is commonly used by people who don't know or care which botanical plant they mean, much as "grass" is used. I don't know of such a concept though – do you? Richard New Forest (talk) 13:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The main reason I see for this not being a disambiguation page is that the term is a legitimate target for links and a quick perusal of the links to the term suggests that many if not most of them would be impossible to disambiguate to a specific species. So that suggests to me it is better to leave the stubby set index article about bulrushes as a group of similar plants and have a separate disambiguation page for other uses of the term. older ≠ wiser 13:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC)