User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 6

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New template

Hi Peter, I just created {{BotanistTeam}} for use on the Ruiz y Pavón article. It mostly just takes everything from the other two ({{Botanist}}, {{Botanist2}}), with slight amendments to fit. I would appreciate if you would have a look, and definitely feel free to modify it. My first and maybe only template. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 09:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The team template should maybe call {{Botanist}} twice (and thus cite IPNI twice). IPNI doesn't seem to handle searches with spaces, so the existing templates only get IPNI results for Ruiz. For what it's worth, I'm not finding an entry for Ruiz & Pav. as a team in a hardcopy of Brummit and Powell, although the 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.

• Sminthopsis84 reports (in the edit summary to a change made to 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)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For contributions to plant sciences Michael Goodyear (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)

Hippeastrum

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 --Michael Goodyear (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? --Michael Goodyear (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)

More table stuff

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)

Helping Hand Barnstar

		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)

Liliaceae

We are colliding - so need to be a bit cautious in keeping edit box open --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:02, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Good idea re book x-referencing - but there are a lot of those!! --Michael Goodyear (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) --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:27, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

fixed them all --Michael Goodyear (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 Liliaceae up for GA. Not perfect but not bad.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

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! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Random boldface terms in lead, combined with vacuous pseudo-definitions

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 Talk:Taxonomy (biology)#Merge proposal, which proposes merging Biological classification into Taxonomy (biology)? You opposed the merger, and I abstained. I now find myself inclined to agree with User:JSquish about merging those two pages (no others!), probably mostly because Taxonomy (general) is no longer so much under attack. I suspect, however, that you may have a good argument that could convince me to oppose the merger. Best wishes, Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:45, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

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 User:Sminthopsis84 just want to bring a little more organization to pages that are, well, about organization! I would love to hear other solutions, but it seems to me like a merger between taxonomy (biology) and biological classification (which seem to cover the same scope) would be a good start. To recap my argument from the talk page: no one disputes that "taxonomy" is a broad field, and taxonomy as applied to biology is a distinct subtype. Hence, it is agreed that 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)

Liliaceae

Thank you for your help with Liliaceae, which I am pleased to announce has now reached GA. Again the reviewer has urged me to push for FA. One good thing about putting so much work into this and Hippeastrum, is that in the process I was able to improve or create many related botany pages, as well as resources. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Liliaceae

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

Happy (almost) birthday to your useful cat!

Peter, thanks for creating Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names. I just now noticed it, though you made it about a year ago! Hamamelis (talk) 21:37, 20 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)

We don't have to agree, but keep it reasonable, please

I gave a clear rationale for linking to a dispute here. You reverted it with an edit summary that is an obvious straw man fallacy, here. That's not how WP:BRD works. If you do not have an actual policy-cognizant reason to revert, then don't revert. You also don't get to make a dispute go away by deleting references to it. Please note that while I disagree with your reasoning at WT:NCFLORA, I've gone out of my way to work up a variant of your proposal that resolves the issues I had with it (and anyone else would who understands taht NC guidelines do not apply to article content, only titles), instead of just rejecting it, and have not questioned your personal motivations for taking the positions you do, or labelled you disruptive for taking them. (Actually imposing anti-MOS content-guideline changes on NCFLORA would definitely be disruptive, though, like pushing alternative reliable sources rules, that contradict WP:RS, into some other guideline). I assume even better faith about you than I do about many of the other pro-capitalization editors. While you are unbending on the issue, you have not engaged in disruptive tactics, and I don't see any evidence of WP:NOTHERE behavior. I do not believe that you intend to try to have NCFLORA or any other NC page usurp MOS guidance on article content, I just don't think you thought thorugh the material very carefully in relation to NC guidelines' scope. Please don't make me change my mind about your good faith, by engaging in revert warring for silly reasons like that one, or borerline-attacking me with clear assumptions of bad faith as you did here. We don't have to agree, and we can knock holes in each other's arguments all day, but it doesn't have to be personal.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  05:51, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Your edit was not a "constructive" one, in the sense of an edit which is keeping to the spirit of the existing document and attempting to improve it. Edits which seek to change the meaning of MOS-type pages should, in my view and in accordance with the practice of the community interested in this page, be proposed and agreed on the talk page first. "Imposing anti-MOS content-guideline changes" is aggressive, inappropriate and irrelevant language. Partly because it privileges the guidance in the MOS above all else, whereas as I now know – better than before – the English Wikipedia just doesn't work that way. Partly because it expresses a view quite at odds with the way that the page was been developed.

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 "published" plan since mid-2007, in which as long as one or another of the NC pages says what they want, they plan to treat MOS as if it does not exist. I'm sorry you feel that "Imposing anti-MOS content-guideline changes" was all of those adjectives you used, but your proposed changes at WT:NCFLORA very clearly would have added content-guideline material to that NC page, and it was clearly contrary to MOS, both in spirit and in various specifics, and clearly designed to be. So, the nature of your objection here isn't very clear. (I also have to observe that your bit above about 'Your edit was not a "constructive" one, in the sense of an edit which is keeping to the spirit of the existing document and attempting to improve it' seems like psychological projection, since it perfectly describes your plan for NCFLORA, viewed uncharitably.)

The guidance of the MOS on style matters is certainly above that of other WP guidance on style matters. That is precisely how WP works. WP:RS is not more authoritative on consensus than WP:CONSENSUS, which in turn is not more autoritative on reliable sources than WP:RS. The very idea that we'd have an well-developed MOS, watchlisted and participated in by hundreds, yet it would not actaully be our definitive stile guide just does not compute. Even WP:AT policy very clearly defers to MOS on style matters, linking explicitly to it more than once. So do the NC guidelines. This pretense that NC pages are somehow immune to the broader consensus at MOS, and only on capitalization, and only were 1 (or 2 or 4) topics are concerned, is simply untenable. The way that particular page has been developed has been explicitly to WP:GAME the system by trying to intentionally diverge from MOS. I am seeking maximum consensus, and much of it already exists at MOS (no amount of "MOS isn't a real consensus" stuff from a handful of people is going to change that). I haven't said anything about English plants in particular that I recall. (Sorry, I'm now responding in series to what you were saying above, and am hitting some points about which I have little to say, so they're coming off as one-liner non sequiturs.)

I hereby insert {{talkfact}} on your fleeing botanists claim: Show me editors who are in fact botanists who have quit WP because they can't capitalize. It's nonsense. YOu know as well as I do taht all academics who come form fields that have style quirks are entirely willing and able two write precisely the same material without those quirks, because they have to do so professionally all the time, when submitting articles to more mainstream journals that do not honor their style quirk. It is just not plausible that professional botanists or ornithologists or entomologists are saying "I can't believe it! Some jerks on Wikipedia say I can't capitalize common names of species! My head is going to explode! Screw this place, I quit!" It is not happening. The failure of that "draft capitalization guideline" page cataloguing all the run-rampant capitalization and anti-capitalization "standards" that were all over the map even as last as 2011 is concrete proof that this Chicken Little story is false: When MOS settled on lower case, it reversed a large number of projects there, and except for WP:BIRDS, every single one of them (that was still active) went along with it without any fuss at all. No editors resigned in a huff. No one canvassed and manipulated polls to try to reverse it. No one called for editorial boycotts and strikes. No editors became confused or enraged. No readers were confused. Strife was markedly reduced. nothing bad happened at all. Except all the angst generated as a result of one project being inveterate hold-outs who will not give up until a really big RFC that can't be effectively canvassed, or an RFARB case leaves them little choice but to stop beating that dead horse.

The main reason that professional academics quit Wikipedia has nothing to do with style. Rather, WP is a foreign and to their eyes low-grade culture of reliance on journalistic secondary even tertiary sources, and with unreasonably suspicious treatment of primary sources because any attempt at even basic interpretation and synthesis is immediately attacked as WP:OR. WP is not a user-friendly environment for editors, and pro academics rarely last long here: They are not sufficiently respected, because we have no means of giving them more editing rights because of their preeminence, achievements, degrees, etc. They can't cite their own peer-reviewed work without being accused of WP:COI. They can't write about cutting-edge research here with being called WP:POV-pushers or even 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)

I don't find expressing this kind of stuff in writing easy, so it may well be my fault. But you just don't seem to get the point of what I'm trying to say.

I don't care very much one way or the other as to the small details of style. What I care about, deeply, is maintaining a tolerant culture on Wikipedia. To me, this means trying to achieve consensus above all, and tolerating divergence where true consensus cannot be achieved.

Doubtless you will say that there is a consensus over the issues that concern you. There is not a consensus, so long as a significant minority is not persuaded to go along with it.

You've returned to Wikipedia after a considerable absence or reduction in editing. Suddenly there is what another editor (not me) has described as "a wall" of posts and a "hectoring" tone. I'm as responsible for the first as you (I can't judge the second). It's unhelpful to the project. This is what drives people away. Of course I never said that capitalization per se drives people away. What drives them off is that editing Wikipedia stops being fun and becomes a battle. All of us, me as well as you, need to work hard to ensure that it remains fun. Yes, there is an issue over giving "experts" respect. One way of doing that is to allow them to join WikiProjects and then listen very carefully and respectfully to what those WikiProjects say. One way of not doing it is to constantly link to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, but only in relation to WikiProjects, not in relation to those who watch the MOS (whether me or you).

I'll search later for links, but another issue you perhaps didn't see was a long discussion of whether American editors could use their traditional typographic quotation style in articles in the US ENGVAR. The refusal to allow this alienated yet another tranche of editors. (Note that I personally strongly prefer LQ.)

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 MOS:LIFE on capitalization, all they have is no consensus to do so. That's kind of the end of the story. Even if it were three projects, out of the entire breadth of biology projects, that would still not be enough to establish that MOS:LIFE is some consensus-free aberration. The months-long early 2012 discussion that led to the current wording was not just inclusive of but canvassed, disrupted and dominated by one project and they still abjectly failed to get their way. It's time to pull the plug. Even aside from all of that, it's a matter of policy that wikiprojects are not autonomous bodies; they do not somehow represent anything other than the individual opinions of their participants, and not everyone at that/those projects even agrees on the capitalization, much less agrees that years of editwarring, WP:FAITACCOMPLI actions and other disruption are worth it in order to be 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 WT:NCFAUNA was in-article content regulation, not article titles guidance at all. I think you forget that my original very-early-2012 draft of the wording at MOS:LIFE was more favorable toward WP:BIRDS[1] than what emerged after that months-long discussion. You keep treating me like an enemy of that project. I'm a member of that project who disagrees with the tendentious pursuit of WP:SSF nonsense by some of its more vocal participants. My principal concerns here are the shameless WP:GAMEing of the system going on, thwarting MOS:LIFE by massaging the wording at the NC pages and even MOS subbpages to contradict it and to undermine the community having reliable, consistent guidelines, all to make a dozen or so people at one project happy. That's not how consensus works here. It has way bigger implications than capitalization of some organism names. It's a "we do not negotiate with terrorists" issue. If one project can get away with holding ten thousand articles in WP:OWN bondage by simple organized tendentiousness and system-gaming, then no guideline, not even any policy, is safe from the same sort of concerted politicking. This is a large-scale test case of WP self-governance. That is why I care. It's not about this style nitpick or that, it's about organized editorial behavior and it's effects in a system that is supposed to be transparent but which is easily manipulated by off-wiki campaign coordination. For my part, I abide by and "enforce" as an editor a large number of style decisions at MOS that I do not agree with. I would change at least 20 things in MOS if I cared to have it all be my favored way. I don't pursue any of them, because the stability and site-wide buy-in, across all topics, that MOS has is 1000x more important that my loathing of sentence case on headings or whatever else I might pick on. I have little patience or sympathy with anyone who can't see that it's also 1000x more important than their desire to capitalize birds or moths, or do anything that gets catalogued and eye-rolled at at Wikipedia talk: Specialist style fallacy. It doesn't mean I hate them or think they are stupid or are acting in bad faith, I just don't agree with their prioritization, and I think their entrenched "give me my style quirk or give me death" attitude is genuinely inimical to the project despite their best intentions. I'm also aware they feel the same way about the MOS protectionism evinced by me and various other people. 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: {{talkfact}}×2. Yes, some small number of American pretend they cannot wrap their minds around there between two different kinds of punctuation style and them not really being regional, but so what? They are so few that WP:5THWHEEL would seem to apply. Anyone, academic or American or whatever, who would really quit the project because of a style rule they don't like is either WP:NOTHERE, really, to build an encyclopedia, or has personal issues that call into question their WP:COMPETENCE as people who can handle a collaborative project like this, or even deal with the off-wiki fact that publications of all sorts have style guides which differ. We know for certain that academics are not actually among these people, because every single one of them professionally has to adapt to whatever style guide is required but whatever journal (and, often non-journal, mainstream publication) they're submitting something to. This leaves the hobbyists; they capitalize because field guides do it, and do other things because non-academic publications do it (italicize and capitalize martial arts moves or skateboarding tricks because MMA and skating magazines do, whatever). But we know that field guides do it for emphasis (ease of visual scanning); all fields guides on all topics do it, either with caps or boldface or both, and we know that specialist rags do it because they like to "big-note" stuff they feel is special and important in their field for their readers. It's not some world-wide convention, it's random b.s. Sometimes it happens to totally coincidentally align with something like an IOC specification, and that's kind of unfortunate, because it can lead to irrational entrenchment along lines that are purely "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" reasoning. Birdwatchers and ornithologists have totally different reasons for wanting to capitalize birds (I can prove this if you need me to - there are entire threads when every single pro-caps source, just piles of them, cited by angry WP:BIRDS people are field guides and nothing but). When I first arrived at WP, I came here with a pro-caps position myself, because as a [non-pro] herpetologist, I was entirely used to field guides capitalizing common names, and even some more academic works doing so. [Side promotion: puppy is amazing; big enough to use as a riot shield, and shames much of WP's own coverage of species and subspecies.] I even smugly agreed that not doing so was "wrong", because of the alleged ambiguity problem and total failure to understand that "reliable sources" for style on WP are principally other encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc., not specialist tomes. But the pro-caps arguments are totally overwhelmed. Not just recently, in some isolated instance of the debate, but every single time the discussion is open and clear, going back a decade now. Academics, like everyone else, do sometimes quit WP because it feels like a battle, but this rarely ever has to do with style, and it almost never does except on pages like WT:AT and WT:MOS that are consensus-debate forums for style and naming matters, and in WP:RM discussions and other "concentrations" of naming/style disputation, easily avoided. WP usually feels like a battle because of content and sourcing disputes, and additionally feels that way for all the reasons I enumerated in the last go-round, which can be boiled down to "academics don't get treated special here". Laying this at the feet of style disputes is way off-kilter. They're not any different from any kind of dispute, and they're a very rare kind. They seem common to you and me because we are individually drawn to them, but the average editor rarely sees them and can almost always ignore them and move on. Anyway, I agree with you that the disputatiousness of WP drives people off. But it is what it is. The adversarial nature of the legal system is threatening to most people, too, but that's just how it works. I'm not sure how to change how WP works, but I'm not inclined to drop matters I see as crucial to WP's future just because resolving them involves some disputation. The "dispute is bad so anything you do that increases dispute is also bad" reasoning doesn't fly in a system in which 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:OWNership of tens of thousands of articles is a terrible, terrible result. We even have explicit policy against at it 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:FACTION at a wikiproject to engage in years of WP:BATTLEGROUNDing, WP:DIVA antics and WP:Tendentious editing that relies on the constant use of the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT tactic, and to vow to never stop until the other side just gives up. Failing to correct that bad example and put a stop to copycats very much is crucial to WP's future. You'll probably say "well, the lower-casing crowd are doing that too", but we're not. There's no evidence of it. Meanwhile I can (and already have, at WT:MOS), provided diffs of every single one of these consensus-thwarting behaviors from pro-caps WP:BIRDS participants and their few allies. Editors in favor of a consistent style at MOS have even gone out of our way to leave alone, and wall off the birds project (and for that matter the sprinkle of editors who want to capitalize moths and English plants) for two years to see if the matter would just sort itself out, and that was a mistake. All they've done is entrench more, mislead others into thinking they have an "exception" instead a WP:CONLEVEL policy problem they won't let go (with real consequences, like 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)

Statistics

@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:BIRDS are doing. No one but a few dozen editors on the whole project wants to capitalize that stuff, and it causes endless dispute. As someone observed at WT:MOS there really isn't a middle gorund on this; there is no half-capitalization. Either we capitalize or we don't, so both sides are correct but making no useful point when they accuse the ohter of trying to get their way and make others editors do what they are doing. I'm not trying to misinterpret you, but you seem to be making an argument for "we should have the Manual of Style, but we should be free to ignore it for any reason, if one or more of us are reluctant to follow something in it". That amounts to a "we should not have the Manual of Style" argument, if it were played out. I can't think of a single rule in it that isn't prescriptive and which does not want to make some subset of editors disobey it. That's the nature of style manuals, and instructional-admonitional works in general. It's certainly how MOS works. Imagine if we said "forget it, there's no rule any more to write binomials like Ambystoma tigrinum; any style is fine as long as it's spelled correctly. Would you be okay with ambystoma tigrinum, AMBYSTOMA TIGRINUM, Ambystoma TIGRINUM, etc.? Somehow I doubt it. (And why isn't Ambysoma tigrinum a WP:SSF matter? Because it doesn't conflict with normal, everyday usage like "Golden Eagle" does for everyone but an ornithologist. MOS happily does what specialist fields want, in relation to their specialty, but only when it doesn't trigger WP:ASTONISH, WP:NABOBS, WP:CREEP, WP:JARGON, WP:SOAPBOX, 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)

Request to improve the cross-references between two pages relating to Paintbrush Lily

Hi Peter

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 unsigned comment added by Chelseawoman1 (talk • contribs) 10:33, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

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.