User talk:Oiyarbepsy/topic/Thank you for the notification, but ...

Thank you for the notification, but ...

Hi Oiyarbepsy,

Thank you for alerting me that Microphyll (disambiguation) is about to be deleted, but I am at a loss for a way to include this information in wikipedia. It would certainly be a good thing to prevent readers from getting the impression that a microphyll forest consists of Lycopodiophyta, but I cannot imagine a page title that could be used for the forest-classification system that includes microphyll, mesophyll, macrophyll, etc. To call it "Raunkiaer's leaf-size classification" would not be appropriate because subsequent ecologists have considerably developed the system, and it was not a big deal for Raunkiaer, he just considered it one of many ways that one could statistically analyze plant communities. As far as I know, forest ecologists don'g give a name to the system. If the component parts such as "microphyll (forest classification)" were to be set up as separate pages, I'm sure they would be deleted for the crime of being too small. That's par for the course with wikipedia; I've seen the intense bureaucracy about page titles defeat efforts by a number of clearly knowledgeable contributors to expand the content, and that is one of the reasons that I have withdrawn. Wikipedia is appropriate for describing social phenomena and anything that has an obvious simple title, but not for statistical methods or scientific approaches. Sorry. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Nadiatalent:I moved the affected content to Microphyll, under the section Ecology. Feel free to edit and improve there. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 23:16, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Okay, I'll try. It is a very weird place to put it, what we in biology call an artificial classification; it's rather like making David Bowie and Alan Rickman share a page because they were both entertainers and died in the same week. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)@Nadiatalent: @Oiyarbepsy: How about a new "Size" section within Leaf#Terminology, if these are a set of terms for sizes of leaf? Then a hatnote on Microphyll on the lines of {{about||the leaf size classification|Leaf#Terminology}}? PamD 15:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)@Nadiatalent:re-pinging as spelled wrong last time.PamD 15:52, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks @PamD:. I'd say that one of the meanings has to do with vegetation science, which is about plant communities rather than leaves. Wikipedia is severely deficient in vegetation science (and rather deficient in forest ecology). I've done what I can at Microphyll and will now leave it for posterity to deal with, gently or otherwise. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Nadiatalent: @Oiyarbepsy: Well, I've gone ahead and added Leaf#Size and will now make some redirects/dab page entries to it. An interesting little project! PamD 17:10, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Nadiatalent: @Oiyarbepsy: But having seen Nadia's sterling work on the Microphyll article I think we need to split that out into a new Leaf size, which can include my comparative table and her solid content about Raunkiaer. I hope that's OK? Will leave it for now because I have Real Life stuff to do, unless either of you would like to do the splitting? I've created various redirects to Leaf#Size which would be better retargetted to this new article, which I think will be an asset to the encyclopedia! I'm not quite sure where the "vegetation science" aspect comes in - describing an area as "microphyll" because all the flora have leaves of that size, I suppose. Hmm. I'm not an ecologist, more a disambiguation enthusiast and tidier up of loose ends. PamD 17:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Nadiatalent: @Oiyarbepsy: ... and I've now created Leaf size, linked from Leaf#Size, incoming redirects from all the terms except Microphyll (though Mesophyll is complicated). I'll shift the content out of Microphyll when I've got time, unless someone else would like to do so. But now I need to cook, eat, and go out line-dancing. In 60 minuutes. PamD 17:55, 18 January 2016 (UTC)