Hey Masebrock! I came across your plant articles - awesome work =) Just wanted to suggest that you upload your plantlife pictures to the Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia's free image repository. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Commons, but: seeing that you release your pictures into the public domain, it's best to upload your images to the Commons, where they can be used on Wikipedia, and all other Wikimedia projects. Saves a lot of work for other editors, too, since free images hosted on Wikipedia are eventually tagged and moved to the Commons over time. If you have any questions, let me know. Cheers, ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs07:37, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Masebrock. Thanks for all the botanical images: a great many of them are the sole examples of a given species on any Wikimedia project. For that reason, I've begin transferring them to Wikimedia Commons so they're available to every Wikimedia project and for any other use as well. I've also begun creating the relevant taxon categories on Commons as well, which will make them easier to find.
I noticed that you have a gallery of your work displayed on your user page. On those occasions when a file has to be renamed on being transferred to Commons (usually due to a filename conflict), with your permission I'll change the filename on your user page so your gallery stays intact. I'll also edit the articles where the images are displayed. So far there have only been a couple of renames, largely because, as I mentioned, your images are often the sole specimens we have, which is what makes them especially valuable.
Hi, again. For each of the species you've photographed I've tried to find range maps at the USDA Plants Database as well as illustrations from Britton & Brown, Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada. If you'd find these useful for the articles you've created, you can find them in the relevant category at Commons -- e.g. for Iva imbricata you can find them at Category:Iva imbricata. ---- Rrburke (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would be hesitant to add USDA range maps to all the species, since county-by-county maps do exist, just not in a free form yet. For example BONAP has county maps for every species http://bonap.net/MapGallery/County/Iva%20imbricata.png that are much more useful but unfortunately copyrighted. I don't know what to do in the meantime until a free source is available, but the I think the USDA maps are misleading due to the large blocks of color where a plant is not actually found. At the last conference I went to, everyone was using BONAP in their powerpoints and posters. I might email the creator of BONAP and ask for his thoughts on using his maps on Wikipedia. Masebrock (talk) 17:53, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't added any range maps to articles, only to the relevant Commons categories, but I thought the national range maps might be useful for article taxoboxes. Because the image in the taxobox is displayed at small size, its purpose would be just to give the reader an at-a-glance overview of what regions the species can be found in.
Incidentally, the USDA actually does publish county-by-county maps at the Plants Database website. Clicking on a state where the species is present opens up a state-level county-by-county map, and clicking on the state-level map opens up a higher resolution map in which the counties are labeled. Sorry, I explained that poorly: what I mean is that, for example, clicking on Texas in this map opens up this map, and clicking on that state map opens up this more detailed state map. -- Rrburke (talk) 13:48, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Masebrock. Could you help me out with the classification of Schoenolirion croceum? I'm trying to create an accurate taxonavigation box for the Commons category Category:Schoenolirion croceum I've created to contain your image File:Schoenolirion croceum Central Basin.jpg. The USDA Plants Database lists S. croceum as a member of the Liliaceae family; ITIS lists it under Asparagaceae; GRIN concurs with ITIS but notes that Schoenolirion is sometimes placed variously in Agavaceae, Hyacinthaceae or Liliaceae; and the Wikipedia article you created says Agavaceae. Me, I'm just confused. Have a suggestion? -- Rrburke (talk) 15:31, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again, Rrburke. Schoenolirion should be under Asparagaceae according to the most recent genetic data. The monocot group has been in a serious state of taxonomic flux over the past few years, resulting in a lot of uncertainty. The most recent genetic evidence is compiled by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, and their classification is the APG III system. APG certainly isn't the final word, and any post-2009 publications need to be taken into consideration if there are any. But as of now APG seems to be the most authoritative, up-to-date source we have, and it is the system followed in the Asparagales page. I was using an out of date source when writing the Schoenolirion page, I'll change the family to Asparagaceae.
Thanks again for moving and categorizing all those images by the way. I'll have plenty more photos to come once I get a break from field season.Masebrock (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, Masebrock. Hope field season is going well. As I was creating a Commons category for Asimina angustifolia I discovered that ITIS lists its taxonomic status as "not accepted" and as a synonym for Asimina longifolia. Could you advise me which category I should create? If it ought to be Asimina longifolia, I can also request a name change for the image and effect the attendant tidying. Cheers. -- Rrburke (talk) 13:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there. Similar question: I'm not sure whether to create the Commons category Nabalus barbatus or Prenanthes barbata for your image File:Nabalus barbatus.jpg. Whichever you think is better, I can do the renaming, cleanup etc. -- Rrburke (talk) 01:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely going to go with Nabalus barbatus for this one. Old Prenanthes was shown to be an unrelated grouping, really all Prenanthes except P. purpurea are Nabalus now. Thanks again for your help making my images more usable.Masebrock (talk) 02:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again. Looking for direction on a similar case, involving your image File:Penstemon alluviorum.jpg: ITIS lists the taxonomic status of Penstemon alluviorum as 'not accepted' and a synonym for Penstemon digitalis. Moreover, the NCRS placesPenstemon alluviorum/Penstemon digitalis in the Scrophulariaceae family. What would you like me to do? -- Rrburke (talk) 13:46, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would maintain Penstemon alluviorum as a distinct species and leave it in the Plantaginaceae. A 2012 publication resurrected it from Pentstemon digitalis, and the USDA Plants website is really outdated when it comes to taxonomy.Masebrock (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again. Currently the Commons category Anagallis minima is a redirect to the category Lysimachia minima: do you think it should be the other way around? -- Rrburke (talk) 14:33, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Lysimachia minima is the the more correct name, from the most recent publications. There's been a lot of rearranging with the Myrsinaceae/Primulaceae group. Many Wikipedia pages are showing the old family names in the former Myrsinaceae. Masebrock (talk) 03:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's correctly identified and a surprising find for Wisconsin. The low number of flowers in the axils and the pale petal color separate it from Ammannia coccinea, which is the species more typically seen in that area. Feel free to send any photos my way that need identification. I may not be able to do some of the more challenging ones over the computer screen, but many species are identifiable with just photos.Masebrock (talk) 01:01, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Masebrock, I just wanted to let you know that I have added the "autopatrolled" permission to your account, as you have created numerous, valid articles. This feature will have no effect on your editing, and is simply intended to reduce the workload on new page patrollers. For more information on the patroller right, see Wikipedia:Autopatrolled. Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! Choess (talk) 04:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Trifolium amoenum. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has that as the initial ID too. I don't know why it was changed, maybe just a mistake by the user. I will change it back. Masebrock (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Masebrock. Thanks for your help with the previous ID. I'm trying to figure out the classification of Euptychium robustum, but am finding a lot of contradictory information. All the sources I can find place it in the family Pterobryaceae, but Pterobryaceae I've found placed in several different orders: Hypnales, Ptychomniales, Hookeriales and Bryales. Do you know what's the most current classification of Pterobryaceae? -- Rrburke (talk) 11:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say, mosses are not my expertise. I would just do what ITIS says, since it is reasonably up to date. There are a lot of sources that are static like USDA Plants and Flora of North America which I would not trust at all. Masebrock (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Does this mean that Pterostylis obtusa is merely a synonym of Pterostylis bryophila, or simply that Pterostylis bryophila is now accepted as a separate species, but that Pterostylis obtusa is also still accepted, only that Pterostylis bryophila no longer falls under this name? -- Rrburke (talk) 10:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, its not a bother at all. I enjoy answering questions, and I doubt there are too many other botanists hanging around Wikipedia. When a name is "misapplied", that means that someone once published a treatment of that taxa and assigned it to an identity that did not match the type specimen. For example, if I published a treatment of oaks and said "all the White Oaks in North America are English Oaks (Quercus robur)", that would be a big misapplication of the name Quercus robur, since an examination of the type specimen of Quercus robur would quickly tell you that my application of the name doesn't match the type specimen. A misapplication is kind of like a mass misidentification done on some formal level.
So in this case, it looks like Pterostylis bryophila and Pterostylis obtusa are both valid species, and previous recearchers have mistakenly identified ("misapplied") P. obtusa as P. bryphila.
Now, even though in this case both names appear to be valid, the misapplied name doesn't have to necessarily be valid in every case. It could be the misapplied name is the invalid name for another species. If I called all white oaks in North America Quercus bellogradensis, an invalid name who's type specimen is English Oak (Quercus robur), that would be a misapplication of an invalid name. I hope that clears things up a little bit.Masebrock (talk) 03:48, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I noticed you wrote above that you doubted there were many other botanists around Wikipedia. Actually there are quite a few attached to WP:PLANTS. We certainly need more – do please join in the discussions at WT:PLANTS and consider putting your name on the list at WP:PLANTS/Participants.
You probably saw my edit to Trillium. The WCSP usually explains its reasons for regarding a name as a synonym under the "Not accepted by" tab. It seems reasonable to me for them to follow the USDA Plants database, but then I'm neither American nor a professional botanist. If you don't think the WCSP is right, I've found the Kew team very responsive to e-mails. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:52, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Peter. I will gladly join the WP:PLANTS project, I did not know such a thing existed. Regarding the Trillium, I think your edit is the best move, showing that different sources have different opinions on the taxa.Masebrock (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Masebrock. I'm trying to find out what is the most up-to-date classification for the Kaweah monkeyflower, Erythranthe norrisii or Mimulus norrisii. Do you happen to know which it is? Thanks! ---- Rrburke (talk) 12:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Rrburke. Erythranthe norrisii is the way to go. Many former Mimulus have been moved to Erythranthe based on genetic evidence.Masebrock (talk) 16:13, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Masebrock. I saw your comments at Talk:Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests about the non-notability of WWF ecoregions. In the early days of Wikipedia, there were a devoted set of editors who thought that the WWF ecoregion system was important enough to write these kind of articles. For years, I have worried about our neutral point of view guideline for these articles, because the articles, by definition, reflect a single source that is an advocacy organization.
You are bringing up another point, which is that these articles are not notable. There's a notability guideline that we follow, that a topic has to have significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. In this cases, I would say that we would need non-WWF sources to mention these ecoregions. It looks like the Nature Conservancy has adopted the WWF ecoregions into their own conservation analysis (see, e.g., their Atlas of Global Conservation. There is also an atlas from Vanderbilt University (see, e.g., [3]). I suspect this is enough to fulfill the notability guidelines.
Hi Hike395, thanks for responding to my comment. I suppose I should clarify that I don't think the WWF ecoregions are non-notable in the strict sense. Its more that I think they represent a minority viewpoint, while purporting to represent the scientific consensus. This article is titled "Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests", implying it should be about the ecological community as it is widely understood, but it is instead about the "Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests as defined by the WWF", which is a minority viewpoint that is different from the majority viewpoint in significant ways. The majority of researchers in scientific publications use either the EPA ecoregions or the physiographic provinces, which cover the same approximate geographic boundaries. The WWF ecoregions are essentially unheard of.
Perhaps its inevitable that there will be a lot of alternative systems floating around with duplicated content. I was hoping that we could merge these systems to avoid redundancy. However, I got some push-back for attempting to do that with the Central U.S. hardwood forests and the Interior Low Plateau. So I'm content with just having duplicated content for now. My plan is to expand the Appalachian Plateau article to cover the natural communities in a way not boxed in by the WWF definition. Masebrock (talk) 21:29, 6 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi - I think your photos labeled Solidago arguta are excellent. But I'm concerned that they are misidentified. I'm not sure which Solidago they are, but shouldn't S. arguta have larger, wider basal leaves with deeper and more obvious serrations? I'm sorry if I've repeated this question in too many other places; I'm not a regular wikipedia user, so I'm not sure where to discuss these things. Doppelbrau (talk) 07:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Doppelbrau. You are fine, this is the right place to contact me, since I probably wouldn't have noticed your comments on the Solidago arguta page.
Solidago arguta can often lose its basal leaves by flowering time (see specimens [4], [5], [6]). However, you can see from the photo that these leaves are still basally disposed, ruling out S. ulmifolia, S. gigantea, or S. rugosa as possibilities. The secund, recurved branches if of the inflorescence rule out S. caesia, S, curtisii, S. erecta. And although the photo is grainy, the steam leaves are indeed serrate, to the same degree as the stem leaves in the line drawing.
I am positive of the identity of the species in this photo. S. arguta is one of the most common species of Solidago in the acidic lower slopes of the Ocoee Gorge area.Masebrock (talk) 16:21, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello! I have noticed your great photographs and that you are located in Tennessee. I thought I'd ask if you'd be interested in going to Coffee County to the May Prairie State Natural Area to photograph the newly-discovered, rare, endemic Symphyotrichum estesii (May Prairie aster, Estes' aster). There are only a handful of images on iNat, all with Commons-unacceptable licenses. It should be in bloom now and remain so for awhile. Please let me know if this would be interest to you. Thank you in advance for your consideration! —Eewilson (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm in the area. I actually tried to photograph this species at May Prairie few years ago before it was named, but the pictures didn't turn out quality-wise.Masebrock (talk) 16:28, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello Masebrock, I don't think we've officially met on-wiki but our editing paths have crossed a few times. I've been going through and reaching out to editors who have made pages on Hypericum species recently, and saw you created a few really nice articles and are a subject matter expert on botany. I'm reaching out to ask if you'd be interested in helping me out with expanding the genus article at Hypericum with the goal of taking it to GA. It's a level-4 vital article and its current state is extremely poor. The genus has been my on and off pet project for the past five or so years, and I've brought one article to GA and have another on the way, but I haven't tackled anything this big yet. I was just wondering if you'd be interested in working together with myself (and hopefully a handful of other editors) on improving this important article. Please let me know your thoughts! Very respectfully, Fritzmann (message me) 03:03, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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The way I see it we're discussing two seperate questions: 1. The proper article weight of torture in the Human rights in Ukraine page, and 2. Whether the Torture in Ukraine page should be deleted (which it likely will, seeing consensus).
I'm open to the idea that it's too rambling as it currently stands, but I do not think that removal of all text regarding torture satisfies WP:DUE. There is no reason why there shouldn't be at least be a few sentences describing the situation for the reader. I have a proposed text that is pared down, taking up less article space, and speaks more in generalities here: User:Masebrock/sandbox. Masebrock (talk) 07:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. Since this covers the war in Donbas (largely 2014 - 2016), then there should also be some material about the current invasion, i.e. the War crimes in 2022 & the torture chambers. I'm afraid that there would be debates & potential edit warring since my proposal for links only. But a few additional paragraphs could be tried.
More generally, let me explain what I mean when I talk about an "overarching narrative". For background, I mostly edit on WWII topics; see User:K.e.coffman for samples of my contributions. I rarely edit articles on current, up-to-the-minute events. Hence my expectation for an "overview" would be an article published in a scholarly journal with a hypothetical title of "Torture in Ukraine: From the 1991 independence to the 2022 Russian invasion". Such an imaginary article would assess the prevalence of torture in 1991-2013; 2014-2021; and 2022-current periods. It would then analyze the roots of the issues; discuss how the Ukrainian state dealt with it; assess the role of outside intervention/invasion; and so on. Such source has not been yet written that I know of, making it very difficult for the wiki editors to agree on how much weight individual events and entities should be given. Hence the endless disputes, edit wars, and so on. I hope this helps clarify where I'm coming from. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Should I move my latest comment to follow yours on the article Talk page: [7]? It might be better to continue there so that others could be aware and chime in if they want... --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:43, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A few thoughts: The lack of thorough, deep-explanatory retrospective sources is an inherent problem for any relatively recent event, and doubly so for a program that operates under the shroud of government secrecy. If the fog of war is bad, the fog of torture in a modern war is worse. And yet, any "Human rights of X country" page must necessarily concern itself with the recent conditions of a state, and not benefit from retrospective scholarly assessment. Due to the inherent recentness of a "Human Rights" page, and the inherent secretiveness and geopolitical sensitivity of the topic of torture, we cannot expect any part of it to be comparable to the depth and sourcing as (in your example) a WWII topic. This is just part of the territory of an encyclopedic page on highly sensitive non-historical topics. Masebrock (talk) 08:07, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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