User talk:Aelwyn/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, Aelwyn, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

Hi Aelwyn,

welcome to the english wikipedia, and also welcome to WikiProject Plants.

I noticed your remark that you want to improve existing articles. Someone aired his/her suspicion that botany harbours about half of all errors in wikipedia. And allthough I think it is an exageration, there certainly are a lot of errros still unnoticed and requiring cleaning up. Besides this, we have a staggering amount of stubs requiring expansion.

be bold,

TeunSpaans 19:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Please check the dandelion article again and make sure that I did not make any mistakes.--Filll 15:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

French Revolution

Yes I know you had a small contre temps in 1789 or so. If I am not mistaken, a lot of the trouble might be traced to excessive zeal of the French King for support of the American Revolution a few years before, which caused some trouble for France.

The thing about the US, that is somewhat unique in the world among Western Industrialized nations is that it has long been a haven for religious extremists thrown out of other places (many because they were too crazy to deal with), such as

• Hugenots from France
• Quakers
• Puritans
• English Catholics
• Jews
• Anabaptists of various flavors (Dunkers, Hutterites, Amish, Mennonites, etc), mostly from Germany
• Dukabors from Russia
• Lubbavitchers

In addition, the fertile soil of America has given rise to a large number of strange religions of their own invention

• Scientologists
• Millerites
• 7th Day Adventists
• Mormons
• Jehovah's Witnesses
• Theosophists
• Spiritualists
• Oneida Community
• People's Church
• Followers of the Bagwan
• Nation of Islam, A "Muslim" religion that is not really Muslim
• Nation of Israel, A "Jewish" religion that is not really Jewish
• Kabala, A "Jewish" religion that is not really Jewish
• Society for Krishna Consciousness, a "Hindu" religion that is not really Hindu
• Christian Scientists, a religion that appears to be neither Christian or about science

and on and on and on. Things like the Unification Church flourish here. All kinds of extremist and crazy religions. Including what you are seeing now in certain places on Wikipedia, which are the biblical literalists, or fundamentalists, or born again, etc. And they are against evolution which they blame for all the world's ills.--Filll 20:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no question that America is proud of its pedestrian, nonelitist anti-intellectual roots, in spite of some notable exceptions in its past (and where did the notable exceptions go? France). In fact, up until World War II, if Americans wanted a superior education, they unquestioningly went to Europe. American doctoral programs were very pale versions of their European counterparts. American colleges were often no more than glorified high schools (which is still often true). I wrote a small contribution to try to measure the level of the debate on creationism, particularly in the us at Support for evolution but it appears to me that it is going down in flames here.--Filll 16:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You found me out. I am Canadian but I live in the US. So I know the Americans very very well. And there are wonderful things, but there are awful things as well...which most Americans are completely blind to. In fact, most Canadians and Europeans only have a small idea of how truly bad some of the social structures and principles operating in the US are, since they do not live here, and it is a bit difficult to tell on a short visit or from the movies or TV.--Filll 17:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You saw just the tip of the iceberg there with the lady on the train. It is staggering. I once talked to someone who had dropped out of college because he had been studying engineering and failed out. He told me that God had told him that engineering was all evil and the work of the devil and he should stop it. And he was serious. I have many many other stories like this, believe me.--Filll 17:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ranunculaceae

Unfortunately it doesn't work because the en-Wiki is very APG I/II oriented. In these systems, Ranunculaceae is a basal Eudicot not a basal Angiosperm as in prior classification systems, making its characterstics not primitive, but derived, compared to basal Angiosperms (see APG II system), so I changed this back. Yes, from the translation your botany looked fine, which is why I went ahead and corrected it without checking. KP Botany 20:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

PS I'll add details and reference it later. I didn't realize the en-Wiki Ranunculaceae page was so pathetic. If you have more to add in botanical subjects from it-Wiki let me know, as it's fast and easy for me to correct scientific translations from someone who at least knows the subject. KP Botany 20:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

No, your language on the current rendition of the Ranunculaceae article is fine, your use of most common for the geographical distribution is correct. There is a lot more information that can be added about the classification of the Ranunculaceae according to various systems. I will look it up, or we both can (probably better), and propose additions on the talk page to avoid having it look like an edit war, and so that other editors can see how we reached a consensus about what to say. I will look at and copyedit Geraniaceae. KP Botany 19:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, the Geraniaceae article was ugly before you got to it. Just a few copyedit corrections, linkings. It needs a section on the plants in cultivation, mention of South Africa as center for biodiversity for Pelargonium, lots of other stuff, but good job, and thanks. Please do more if you feel like it! I'll do research on both families. I've studied Pelargonium a bit as it is a botanical. KP Botany 19:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

And, yes, you're right about the Ranunculaceae taxonomy, it does need cleared up, and I will start taking care of that, and post a note in WikiProject Plants. KP Botany 19:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

en.Wiki botany

I agree with everything you said, it's basically why I started editing in the first place. I tried, when I initially got here to get just that done, some consensus about the format and contents of the plant taxa pages, however I was ignored. I will post your list and some of your comments that I have mentioned before on the WikiProject Plants page, if you haven't already, and get folks to commit to some of the families you suggested for now. KP Botany 18:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Urticaceae

Hi, regarding your message about Urticaceae. For now I reverted the article to a previous edit. Without the AYBABTU. If it's in Wikipedia space, you can't leave nonsense for so long. What would be best if you simply make a sandbox in your userspace and copy the article to there. Then you can work on it and only replace it in wikipedia space when it's finished. Or at least sort of finished. If you don't know how to make a sandbox and copy, just ask and I can do it for you. Cheers, Garion96 (talk) 00:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Invitation

Thanks, Aelwyn, I'll be glad to help. Due to some time-consuming projects in de (finishing de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Lilien and writing an article on a flora) I will regrettably be unable to translate larger parts myself, but I will proofread, correct and of course you can always ask me for anything you don't understand. Furthermore you should consider to request some help at de:Portal Diskussion:Lebewesen, where many more "botanists" hang around too (even some professionals). Best regards, Denis Barthel (former known as Denisoliver) 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussione sullo Stramonio

Ciao, ti ho risposto lì per far partecipare chiunque voglia. Se inoltre vuoi che questa diventi la tua pagina di discussione anche per it.wiki, ti consiglio di mettere un interwiki nella tua firma. Con un collegamento diretto ci verrà più facile trovare questa pagina. K-Sioux

Salvia pratensis

Hi Aelwyn - thanks for the note. The designation comes from the ext link at the bottom of the page, but as you suspected only applies to its status in Britain, not across its whole range, where the species is not threatened overall. I'll take it out. - MPF 21:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)