User talk:Rkitko/Archive27

Yucca brevifolia

I think that we could use some admin intervention at the talkpage for Yucca brevifolia. The climate change debate has gotten completely out of hand, and is rapidly degenerating into accusations of dishonesty and rule-lawyering. I don't see any sort of constructive editing or even discussion happening in the near future. I bring this to you because you've edited the page before, but if you'd prefer it be taken to the noticeboard then let me know and I'll do so. Thank you. Euchrid (talk) 21:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I've lost too much patience with the editor in question to be able to phrase things as calmly or clearly as that, hence recusing myself from the discussion. Euchrid (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for suggestion

Thank you for all suggestion Sir. I have got little more now. Actually we (Nepali wikipedians) are unknown to these rules so I started working in English to know about how it works. Now its good knowledge to me I will try work in the same way in my language too. Hoping for further suggestions.... -Krish Dulal (talk) 04:14, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

*sigh* Mishae

Hey, Rkitko. If Mishae agrees to not remove any more whitespace, would you be cool with me unblocking them? Frankly, I'm not sure how much GF we should have left for them. I tried to make it clear what I meant in my post to them, but apparently I didn't do a good enough job; I'm sad that I dropped it from my watchlist. Hopefully it's clearer now. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 04:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Writ Keeper: At what point is it his last chance? He seems incapable of heeding advice that doesn't affirm his view. His misinterpretation of your message could be innocent but is part of a larger pattern where he's twisted the advice of several other editors to justify his disruptive behavior. I don't believe it's malicious but a failure to get the point and a selective hearing situation. During the AN/I a few editors wondered if it might be time for an indef block because of that. This has been a long standing issue and if Mishae falls into the WP:IDHT range, it might be time to consider that.

That said, in his last message on his talk page he said he'd "minimize" taxobox condensing and that he didn't think his behavior was disruptive. I don't have high hopes for the next message after your note, but I'd need to see a few things from Mishae before I'd consider unblocking: 1) of course, committment that he will not remove whitespace unnecessarily, 2) acknowledgement that his edits were disruptive, and 3) at bare minimum a pledge to help clean up the mess he has made.

By the way, your comment on his talk page, "To be frank, I'm not sure why it's so important to either of you..." wasn't exactly helpful. I have explained numerous times why consistent display of the taxoboxes is important. Until you've gone through and edited several parameters in thousands of taxoboxes, updating them, you wouldn't know that the current display with newlines is always preferred over a condensed version for consistency, ease of editing, and less frustration in finding the same parameter over thousands of articles. We also know exactly why Mishae wants to display the taxobox this way: some silly notion of saving server space, even though he's been told again and again that it will not make a difference and not to worry about it. It's an obsession he will not drop. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 13:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Plant Evolution Cladogram

Any suggestions?

Hei! Thanks for your input on the plant cladogram diagram which I placed in plants and that the creator placed in other articles. So would you be okay with the plant cladogram image if the time axis was removed? Can you suggest any other improvements? This image is a student of mine's educational project and I'm sure she'd like input. Thanks. Earthdirt (talk) 19:54, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Earthdirt. Yes, certainly, an updated version would be fine. I just didn't want a misleading image on such highly visible pages. This might be a great learning opportunity for your student to investigate phylogenetics and cladograms and investigate why time isn't on the horizontal axis. To begin you could lead by explaining that at each branch point there is a node; we can rotate around this node freely and flip the order at the tips (but not the relative relationships) of the groups, so the horizontal axis is rather meaningless. Time, here, is from the past (last common ancestor) to the present (present-day species or in this case groups at the tips) so it would be on the vertical axis. That is the main improvement I can suggest. The rest looks broadly fine. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 11:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Earthdirt (talk) 14:55, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Warning

I beg you not to harass me with the following up thing it makes me agravated. If I will see your comments on my talkpage again I will go to ANI, got that?!--Mishae (talk) 03:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I've replied at Mishae's talk page, but linking the reply thread here for context since Mishae sometimes deletes threads. Rkitko ^(talk) 04:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion to add parameters to taxobox templates

I'd welcome your input at Template talk:Taxobox#Taxobox bug with image maps. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:27, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmm

So, from what I can tell you decided to revert my edits to Rhus virens because of deitalization! Question, how does that template affect the article? I tried both ways and it doesn't do anything. If your are talking about taxobox then it doesn't do anything because the title is italicized through binomial.--Mishae (talk) 03:39, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

That "taxobox hack" - the non-intuitive way of italicizing an article's title - only works under certain conditions, such as when the binomial parameter = the article title and |name= is not used. This is not ideal because it's easier to break: all an editor needs to do is add back |name= and article title italicization is gone. It's best to leave {{italic title}} in place, in my experience. See Wikipedia:TX#Bold/italic markup for some more info. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 04:17, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, if it works under certain conditions there is no point in it. As far as experience goes, I have no such experience, but I would like to know about yours. Care to share?--Mishae (talk) 04:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

See what you did to Cotoneaster franchetii? The article title is now no longer italicized. Please replace the italic title template. Rkitko ^(talk) 04:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

At the time of your message I went to bed. I looked at it before and after, I don't see a difference, call me blind if you want.--Mishae (talk) 14:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

That's because when you looked at Cotoneaster franchetii this morning, your edit had been partially reverted by User:Kevmin. He put the italic title template back on the article. But I assure you that before he did that the title was not italicized. Rkitko ^(talk) 15:00, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that partial revert. Now I decided to remove it again so that I can see what the difference is (I will put it back in as soon as I will get the point in it (so far of which is non)). So far I am confused what exactly does it italicize? The title is italicized from binomial and species and it carries that italization to the top of the taxobox as well. Now as for the article title, I see that its italicized either way...--Mishae (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Categorizing plant articles for Wikiproject Plants

I noticed you assessed a couple set indices as DABs for the plants project assessment. I've been working through Category:Disambig-Class_plant_articles, and reassessing SIAs as Lists (and converting DABs to SIA). I'm not sure that something like Black raspberry is described as a list very well, but it seems clear to me that most of DAB assessed articles aren't technically DABs. I'm fine with assessing them as DAB, as they perform a similar function; I just wanted to be clear on best practice.

More broadly, do we want to be tagging all the SIAs at Category:Plant common names (and any common name SIAs not yet categorized) with Plants project assessments? Is it also worth tagging common names that redirect to a scientific name? I'd guess that tagging redirects could easily triple the number of plants project articles if they all get tagged. Plantdrew (talk)

Hi, User:Plantdrew. Sorry about that - I only assessed a few that way. I momentarily forgot that SIAs were lists and not disambiguation pages, even though they often serve that function. We could always add a new category to our assessment template and make them SIA-class since we have a lot of them... that would be one option. To be honest I've never given it very much thought. What do you think we should do?

I'd say generally, yes, project banners should go on the SIAs in Category:Plant common names and others. When Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Plant articles by quality log gets updated, any pages that are tagged with our banner that get moved or reassessed will show up there, letting us more easily monitor those pages. And if any of those pages are put up for deletion or a requested move or any other major change, they'll show up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Article alerts if they have our project banner on the talk page. On redirects: I haven't made it my priority to do so, since when people turn redirects into articles they often forget to reassess on the talk page (e.g. a common name is also the name of the plant product and a decision is made to split the article into botany info at the sci name and plant product info at the common name). But I suppose it's up to you. I'd love to hear your thoughts, though. Rkitko ^(talk) 22:55, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been mulling it over, and I think classifying them as Lists is the way to go. The other Wikiprojects I found using a SIA template (Category:Set index article templates mostly have SIAs classified as Lists (however Ships and Surnames are large classes of SIA that are classified as DABs for a Wikiproject). None of them have a SIA classification.

I'll make an effort to get the project banner on common name SIAs. I'm not inspired to spend time adding the banner to existing common name redirects, but I may add it to new ones I create.

I'm thinking scientific names currently classified as Plants Project DABs might also be better handled as SIAs/Lists. These are mostly articles covering homonyms or auct. non. senses of a name. As I understand DAB policy, a redirect of Nepenthes rubra auct. non Hort.Van Houtte ex Rafarin: Nichols. (1886) to Nepenthes distillatoria, would be the better format of a DAB page entry (vs. the current blue link to N. distillatoria in Nepenthes rubra. There's also WP:2DAB. I'd rather not to try to fit scientific name DABs into a rigid DAB format, but would prefer to go with the more flexible SIA.

Finally, I added a child category, Category:Set indices on plant common names, to your Category:Set indices on plants to cover the common name SIAs I've been working on. Plantdrew (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that you edited Aranella fimbriata, replacing {{Species Latin name disambiguation}} with {{SIA|plants}}, reducing the population of Category:Species Latin name disambiguation pages from 47 to 46. Of the remaining 46, probably over half are plant-only disambiguations. Is it your opinion that all of the plant-only disambiguations in this category should be marked {{SIA|plants}}? Also, do you think that disambiguation and quasi-disambiguation pages that list only genus-and-species binomials should have italic titles? I'll look for your response here. —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:11, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Photo requests

Via User:Moe Epsilon/Administrators by location, I just noticed that you're in Mount Vernon. Do you have time+inclination to take and upload some photos? National Register of Historic Places listings in Knox County, Ohio is missing photos for some sites (yes, some are missing locations, but several have precise coordinates and addresses), and we also have some holes in the parallel lists for Licking, Coshocton, and Holmes counties. No need to reply; just start adding photos if you feel like it, or ignore me if you don't. Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Nyttend, I'll see what I can do. My partner is on vacation at the moment with the decent camera, so I'll start to fill in some photos when he gets back. It's clear you have already done quite a good deal of work on this, being responsible for many of those photos - nice! The one thing I'm now most curious about on National Register of Historic Places listings in Knox County, Ohio is the mysterious McLaughlin Mound, which has no address and isn't mentioned in either history of Knox County that I have. I pass by the Knox County Historical Society every day; I'll check their hours and see if I can get any leads from them on it. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 20:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! As far as I can tell, McLaughlin and the Melick and McDaniel Mounds in far northern Licking County are virtually unpublished except in the archaeological literature, to which I don't have access. I'd love to get images of them, as I've done for sites like the Rawley Mound at Fredericktown and the Dixon Mound in northern Licking County, but I've just not found a way to find them yet. I have just one suggestion — perhaps you could try to see whether McLaughlin is another name for the mound in the city cemetery. I've never been to the cemetery (I've only seen the mound mentioned online), so I have almost no clue about its nature. I do have a couple small sources on it, so I'll put together a stub on it for you; a fuller article would require that you or I request its National Register nomination form from the National Park Service, which would redact location information before sending it. Nyttend (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

A request and a question

I've got around 120 articles on plants titled by a vernacular name that I've bookmarked/watchlisted, which I believe could be moved to a scientific name title uncontroversially, but which I can't move myself. I noticed you moved three of my watched articles recently (Temu lawak, Bitter melon and White Bryony), and I see you've entertained requested technical moves in the past. I was wondering if you'd be willing to make some moves for me, and was wondering whether even asking you to do so is appropriate (I'd rather not hassle with the RM process for what should be uncontroversial moves, but I don't want to lead to accusations of a Plants cabal moving everything to scientific names). I've got a preliminary list at User:Plantdrew/sandbox#Retitle to scientific name?, but I'm not asking you to investigate and move all of these at once. Some certainly should go through the RM process. If I give you were to give you batches of ~10-20 articles with similar rationales for a move to scientific name would you be willing to consider executing the moves?

I haven't done much with classifying articles for Wikiproject Plants, but I've been looking at the 500 most popular plant articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Popular_pages over the last few months. It seems to me that many of these highly viewed articles would be best classified as High importance, and should rarely be classified below Medium. I should figure out how to use AWB first if I'm reclassifying a large number of articles, but does it seem reasonable to you to assume that the most viewed plant articles are (with few exceptions) best classified as Medium/High importance? Plantdrew (talk)

User:Plantdrew, sure! I'd be happy to help with any uncontroversial moves to scientific names that require the admin tools, e.g. moves over redirects with more than one edit and history merges if any are needed. I don't think a project maintaining articles within its scope by following article naming conventions could ever lead to accusations of a Plants cabal. In fact, in my request for adminship, many folks supported granting the tools to gnomish editors focused on different narrow areas to fulfill requests just like this. If anyone has a problem with any particular move, they can revert and we can go through WP:RM instead for that one. I'm a bit busy off-wiki lately, but if you want to throw 10-20 at me and let me get to them in a few days, I'll be happy to.

I just saw the popular pages report on my watchlist a few days ago, I think. Many of them should be medium or high importance and certainly number of views could be one component of how we rate it. Perhaps we should update Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Assessment#Importance assessments with more advice. I generally rate plant articles that have a large distribution as Mid, endemics or ones with smaller distributions as Low, and if a plant is or has been used for its products, I usually rate it Mid or High depending on how widely known it is. Number of views should line up well with this, but it will be seasonal so we'll have to keep an eye on it and add ones that we didn't catch earlier. Rkitko ^(talk) 21:14, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Dates for plant families and orders

While atypical, I think it is very useful above the genus. Let's discuss this at the plant project before reverting everything I have done. --AfadsBad (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

It is unusual and when we have had discussions on this before at the plants project, the point has been made that doing so makes it look like we don't know what we're doing - a fair criticism. But you're right that the information is useful, which is why I usually include a sentence or two about the taxon's first formal publication in the literature within the body of the article. Still, I don't think it should be part of the author citation in the taxobox. However, search the archives at WT:PLANTS for similar discussions and bring up the issue again if you think it remains unresolved. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 22:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia conversations look like this, with similar results (none). Thanks for the warning. I am going to try anyhow. --AfadsBad (talk) 23:37, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Author citation dates in plant taxoboxes (above genera)

I have been adding dates to taxobox authorities for plant families and orders. I had seen this done in a few taxoboxes, and I am working on citing all of the authorities for plant families and orders. A discussion had taken place about this before, here, although the focus of this discussion was on all taxa, inlcuding genera and species. As you participated in a past discussion, and are actively editing Wikipedia now, I am posting this link in case you wish to comment.

Thanks. --AfadsBad (talk) 23:51, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Category hierarchy for "Plants described in YEAR"

Hi, the category hierarchy for "Plants described in 2009" goes up to "Plants described in 2000s" then to "Species described in 2000s". But it also goes up to "Species described in 2009" and then to "Species described in 2000s" again. My edit summary wasn't quite right, but the current arrangement seems to involve unnecessary redundancy. (Maybe I'm wrong, but it offends me even taking a C++ rather than a Java view of inheritance!) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and there's good reason for that. Wikipedia:Categorization#Category tree organization does not indicate that category structure must be a linear sequence; instead, they can and should overlap in places where it's logical to do so. This seems reasonable to me and all of the other categories are set up this way:

• Category:Species described in the 21st century
  • Category:Species described in the 2000s
    • Category:Species described in 2009‎
      • Category:Plants described in 2009‎
    • Category:Plants described in the 2000s‎
      • Category:Plants described in 2009‎
  • Category:Plants described in the 21st century‎
    • Category:Plants described in the 2000s‎
      • Category:Plants described in 2009‎

Redundancy is not the enemy in situations like this. It's nice to have not only the plants-only hierarchy up to the 21st century category to see what other plants were described in that decade or century, but also the categories of each year included in species of each year so that users can browse easily to see what other species (animal, fossil, fungi) had been described that year. If that leads to overlaps, that's ok because there's no clear single hierarchy like there is with taxonomy (we hope!). Instead we have at least two hierarchies: years and groups (species category contains the categories for just plants, just animals, just fungi, etc.). Rkitko ^(talk) 16:44, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

First, let me be clear that I accept that my edit was wrong and that you were quite right to revert it – I should have said this first of all above.

I think my difficulty (and I've had it before) lies in understanding WP:SUBCAT. Consider this part of the category hierarchy (where I've abbreviated the category names):

     |                  |
 Spp. 2000s <–––– Plants 2000s
     |                  |
 Spp. 2009  <–––– Plants 2009
                        | 
             A plant sp. described in 2009

There are two category trees, one for species, one for plants, with cross-links at every level above the lowest.

Now we cannot put an article on a plant species described in 2009 into both "Plants described in 2009" and "Species described in 2009", because that would place it both in a category (Plants 2009) and in the parent of that category (Spp. 2009). But we can place Plants 2009 into two subcategories (Spp. 2009 and Plants 2000s) of the same parent category (Spp. 2000s).

Is this a correct explanation? I'm just not used to thinking about category hierarchies as only partially ordered in this way. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

That looks accurate. Plants 2009 is a subcat of both Spp. 2009 and Plants 2000s. So perhaps the crosslink that you have a problem with is Spp. 2000s <---- Plants 2000s. Take a look at Category:Species described in the 2000s, though. You've got the ordered subcats of species by year, and then fossils described in the 2000s and plants described in the 2000s, both of which make sense to me as subcats there. Am I correct in my assumption of where you think the problem lies? I get that it's a little funky and it's not set in stone, of course. Do you think there's a way to improve the category structure without losing some browsing function that could be reasonable? By the way, this sandbox I have may be useful. I had been using it to track redlinked categories and notice now there are very few. Category:Plants described in 1943 sticks out in the middle, oddly. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 17:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Now I've studied it, the category hierarchy is exactly as it should be. The problem was that I'm a visual thinker: once I'd drawn the diagram showing how the categories inter-relate, I could see that it made sense. To help people like me, I've added a diagram to WP:PLANTS/Description in year categories. I've also expanded the text a bit along the lines of our discussion at WT:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)