![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Hi, Peter. Thanks for answering my question on montane forests and contributing to the article.
It looks to me like "montane" has (at least) two meanings. One is "anything in the mountains", and the other is the montane zone. For instance, Ecology of the Sierra Nevada uses "lower montane" and "upper montane" for your "submontane" and "montane", as does this useful-looking reference. Also, the IUCN used to use only "montane" and "lowland", so we have a lot of Polbot stubs such as Olivaceous Siskin. (Now it doesn't discriminate altitudes at all.) It seems to me that the NPOV approach would be to cover all mountain forests at montane forest and mention that in some classifications, "montane" has a more restricted meaning. What do you think? — JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:33, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Hello. You have
a new message at Talk:Hybrid_Tea#Requested_move's talk page. —
SMcCandlish
Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ
Contrib.
18:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter. I just want to apologize for letting my irritation with the other editor there spill over in my discussion with you. I still feel the same on the meaning of nomenclature, but I regret my tone and impolite words in speaking to you. You are one of my favorite editors on Wikipedia and believe it or not I really do respect your opinion; so sorry! -- Tom Hulse ( talk) 03:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi!
I know you are busy with the cactus, but I hope you can help me out. On the Norwegian Wikipedia, we have since the beginning used a taxobox without ranks. This has been due to early influence from a single editor, which has since gone unchallenged until a year ago or so. Now, we finally have the consensus to change over to a ranked system, the only problem is that there seem to be no-one capable (or willing) of doing the coding of something as complex as a taxo-box. The bio-editors over at Norwegian WP are just just a handful of people, all of which seem to be as techically inclined as yours truly.
So, I had the bright idea to import and translate the old (non-auto) taxobox from English. I don't know anything about coding, but since the ranks are in latin, I suppose it should be possible to understand what bits need translation. The only problem is, I don't know how to find the code. Do you have access to it? If so, would it be possible for you to post the code on this test page? Petter Bøckman ( talk) 20:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Any actual translation of is something I could do, if someone could point me to what parts to translate. Ideally, I would like for it to be similar enough to be able to copy most, if not all, of an English taxobox into the Norwegian Wiki and gat a passable result. Not that the English WP have switched to the automated system, this is no longer relevant, but I guess I only have to translate the files that dictate the output, so that "ordo" comes out as Orden rather than Order and so forth. Petter Bøckman ( talk) 21:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, thanks for finding my spelling error, that's been in Endnote for ages! What a crazy business those orchid pages are, but at least that short one is hugely improved. Best wishes, Nadiatalent ( talk) 18:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Provided that it's accepted that you have to choose one system rather than another, and that this simply can't be done in a neutral way with a genus like Ophrys (and this does bother me but I can't see any way round it), then I agree that full synonym lists (plus redirects as appropriate) are needed. It's a pity that the WCSP doesn't allow a download in an easily machine processable form. You can get a checklist but it's just text, whereas what I'd like would be say a spreadsheet which mapped every synonym to its accepted name. This would make it much easier to prepare synonym lists. Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
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For being an allround good chap and a voice of reason in a world chaos (and saving my bacon whenever my spelling is sub-pari). Petter Bøckman ( talk) 18:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC) |
Hidden categories don't count; if an article doesn't have at least one visible content category on it, then it shows up on the uncategorized articles list — and it can't just be left there as a "special case". I don't know what other options there are, either, but one has to be found somehow, because the list cannot be left with any permanently uncategorizable pages sitting on it. Bearcat ( talk) 16:32, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Hiya,
I noticed that you changed the assessment of List of useful plants from "SL" to "List" because SL wasn't defined at WP:PLANTS#Assessment#Quality_scale. I found SL at WP:WikiProject Plants/Assessment#Quality scale when I looked ("Meets the criteria to be a List but is significantly incomplete, or needs considerable work to be useful as a complete list of links to a set of articles, or has other serious deficiencies."), and so I'm a little confused. Are the two different? Waitak ( talk) 02:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Botany#Where_to_go_now. Thank you. 512bits ( talk) 15:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, you might want to take a look here so that you'll be aware of something that you might encounter on orchid pages. Unfortunately, this is a far bigger jumble than I can foresee being able to clean up in any reasonable amount of time. Nadiatalent ( talk) 22:14, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Convention would be to leave minor things be if you feel they are "not an improvement," rather than detrimental, for clearly someone thought it was. In this case, the occurences of "light" are close together and obvious. In the altered form "night" occurs at th extremities of the sentence and the repetition is not as pronounced. -- Belg4mit ( talk) 13:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
You PRODed Pea bean whilst I was on a lengthy wikibreak in February of last year for some perfectly logical reasons. One effect was that there was no redirect left behind and nowhere to lodge any text about the Pea bean.I have just had the article Userfied and have re-worked it to try and ensure it fits with current understanding. My proposal is to insert the text into Phaseolus vulgaris as a section. Before doing so, I would appreciate your oversight of the proposed text at User:Velella/Pea bean. I wouldn't want to appear to be recreating an article by the back door. Regards Velella Velella Talk 19:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm attempting to revive the Plant article COTM, and since you're a member of WikiProject Plants, you're being notified about this hopeful revival. Please feel free to propose articles for collaboration, and thanks for your consideration! Northamerica1000 (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
| ![]() Last month's collaboration was: (none). To propose future collaborations, please contribute here! |
Apologies for the apparent tone of my recent edit summary at WP:MOS. It came across very terse and even pissy, but this is principally an artifact of the small max size of edit summaries. The point was that MOS after a lot of contention arrived at a continued (since 2008) consensus to not capitalize common names, and only threw WP:BIRDS a bone because a large enough number of them engage in WP:DIVA threats to go on editing strikes or quit the project if they don't get their way. I've predicted that this won't result in a lasting accord, only temporary peace, because it encourages everyone with a "I want the quirks of my journal's style to be added to MOS, too" peeve to start trying to modify MOS. We can't account for all of these preferences, or we might as well just delete the entire MOS, because every field has typographic and style and orthographic quirks, and they're very frequently contradictory (and they're all contraindicated by real-world general usage in mainstream publications and style guides). The insects project came to its own insular local consensus to just do what specialists in particular subfields like lepidoptery prefer, and essentially have no real standard. WP at large can't be bothered with such trivia, and this "do whatever you want" approach has been rejected at WT:MOS more than once on this issue, and consistently with regard to just about everything else, too (for any convention MOS settles on, about anything, there's someone somewhere who wants to change it for one reason or another, almost always something subject to WP:SSF). If the lepidoptery people can point to a universally accepted taxonomic authority in their field that issues an "official" list of common names and specifically demands capitalization of them, as is the case with birds, that's possibly a good basis for adding such an exception, until someone gets around to doing the RfC everyone's been suggesting, which will probably bury the idea of making such exceptions at all. The fact of the matter is that by very narrow, geeky convention, various journals on various life forms do prefer capitalization of common names in their in-house style (it's common in herpetology, for example), but we cannot account for this here. It's too random, and for every assertion that "it's just done this way in our field", there is always counter-evidence in favor of lower case (even in ornithology!), and the reasons for doing it in dense journal articles don't apply here (we have the luxury of writing in plain, clear English, and are not limited to excessively distilled, clipped prose in which ambiguities are harder to work around). Many laypeople's guidebooks, like everything published by T.F.H., also capitalize and boldface, too, but this is principally to make the common names stand out in pages and pages of near-identical entries. People confuse this with the journal usage, and fallaciously assert that this latter sort of style is "evidence" in favor of "convention", but it's pure coincidence. Reliable sources on English writing for a general audience never capitalize such things. There's nothing special about lepidoptery. It doesn't have a notably different convention nor any special backing for it. It's just that someone who cared to push their journals' practice here made enough noise about it that a project and a subguideline page mentioned it. As I've said before, the real problem with all this "capitalize because we're special" stuff is that almost every field on earth has people that insist on capitalizing things about that field in insider writing, from comic book collecting to soldiering to HVAC to neurosurgery. If they all got their way, virtually every single noun and noun phrase on Wikipedia would have to be capitalized, as if many centuries of English divergence from German never happened, because nearly everything is subject to some special[i]ty somewhere, from pasta to car parts. The only reason there's a "birds exception" at all for now is because of seven solid years of tendentious, threat-laden drama emanating from about 10 or 12 people in one project (more like 4 or 5 active players), in the face of constant criticism from all sorts of quarters. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I've just spotted " Clematis × jackmanii", and would value your advice; I know you've dealt both with hybrid taxa and with cultivars. In this case, I don't know which it is. I have seen it referred to both as "Clematis × jackmanii" and as "Clematis 'Jackmanii' ". I assume that they're the same thing (in practice at least), but I don't know which is the correct title. It makes a difference, because a taxon would take a {{ taxobox}}, while a cultivar would take {{ infobox cultivar}}. This article needs one or the other, but I can't tell which. Do you have any suggestions? -- Stemonitis ( talk) 12:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Science lovers wanted! | |
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Hi! I'm serving as the wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution Archives until June! One of my goals as resident, is to work with Wikipedians and staff to improve content on Wikipedia about people who have collections held in the Archives - most of these are scientists who held roles within the Smithsonian and/or federal government. I thought you might like to participate since you are interested in the sciences! Sign up to participate here and dive into articles needing expansion and creation on our to-do list. Feel free to make a request for images or materials at the request page, and of course, if you share your successes at the outcomes page you will receive the SIA barnstar! Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to your participation! Sarah ( talk) 01:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter, you might want to take a quick look at Talk:Theaceae since being forewarned might save you from spending time cleaning this sort of thing up; it is a bit reminiscent of the material that was added to orchid pages. Nadiatalent ( talk) 13:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
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The Original Barnstar | |
For your work in creating Melanthieae and dismantling the old circumscription of Zigadenus elegantly and accurately. Choess ( talk) 23:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter coxhead, I saw your message. You have made great edits really, so thanks a lot! Well, you have made a good guess of my Indian origin :). Well, as far as I see, the article needs only a few changes now. Actually I could not understand clearly what you told about the lead section. Would you explain a bit?-- Sainsf <^> (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, when I reverted your edit at Wikipedia:Categorization re "subcategory" I obviously failed to scroll down and see the other changes you made (although these are open to debate and perhaps reflective of WP:ENGVAR I had no intention of reverting them). Peter coxhead ( talk) 11:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Is Benzingia an Ackermania . Did I get this right?-- Traveler100 ( talk) 18:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Hello, How are you? I need your help. I ask you if you could enlarge Dipterocarpaceae making better known this group of trees in Wikipedia, adding links to "Dipterocarpaceae" and information about "Dipterocarpaceae" existence on topics as trees articles in tropical articles or botanical or biodiversity articles. Do you know people that could be interested about Dipterocarpaceae article? They are welcome too. Thank you very much. Curritocurrito ( talk) 11:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Peter, I just got a message on my talk page asking if it was necessary to keep cactus protected. I wonder what you think since you've put a lot of work into the article recently. I'm leaning toward removing the protection as a trial to see if our ENGVAR IP friend returns. I already watch the article and know that you're also on it. Any thoughts before I remove the protection? Cheers, Rkitko ( talk) 23:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Hello, How are you? I need your help. I thank you your help in the articles and I hope you help me again in future. I ask you: Can you find more people willing writing in tropical trees, genera and families? I ask you if you could enlarge some articles making better known this group of trees in Wikipedia, adding links to genera and families and writing information and asking people if they are interested in writing about topics as tropical trees articles, tropical forest articles or botanical or biodiversity articles. Do you know Wikipedia forums that could be interested about these type of articles? They are welcome too. I thank you very much.
I am from Spain and my mother language is not English language. Many country side areas, and Natural areas and Living beings are in Countries where population cannot collaborate with Wikipedia, but their Natural World and its highly economically valuable species are very important too in the human knowledge and developtment of the mankind. People should have information because these matters are important, not just a curiosity only. This unknow world is from Poles to ecuator, in unoccupied oceanic areas closely to Europe, in Deserts as Sahara, or whatever. But to me the main aim is to gather the abundant information disperse about living communities and living beings that have existed for millions of years because they are disappearing and in 20 years they will are not longer exist. Curritocurrito ( talk) 12:02, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
The article
Cactus you nominated as a
good article has been placed on hold
. The article is close to meeting the
good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See
Talk:Cactus/GA1 for things which need to be addressed.
Ciaran Sinclair (
talk)
12:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your thorough and detailed GA review. It is very useful to have such constructive criticism to put to use in other articles. With regard to over-technical terms, I find them in scientific papers and use them in articles because I don't know precisely what they mean myself. This is lazy I suppose, but I tried and failed to find out what a D-shape larva was when writing the article so I used the term and only found out it was another term for the better known veliger larva when you stimulated me to do so. What you said in your footnote about species/genus features is true. Sometimes the hardest part of writing the article is a good description of the species, the most important part from the point of view of the reader. Thanks again. Cwmhiraeth ( talk) 05:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, er, the rv you referred to was to the petal article, right? I wouldn't like you to think I reverted it from the sepal article just out of officiousness! As I read your summary, it sounded as though you thought I had zapped it because of the lack of citation. (Just asking, not kicking...) JonRichfield ( talk) 12:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Peter. In this edit to Cladistics, I challenge the attribution to James and Pourtless 2009 of the claim that " A decision as to whether a particular character is a synapomorphy or not may be challenged as involving subjective judgements," saying "Specified pages in the cited monograph contain no material relevant to the claim." The pages specified are 21 ff. Preparing to delete the material, I notice that you added it here. Perhaps you would like to reword your statement as well as modifying the reference? Other material in the paper certainly is relevant, though I don't see that it supports the claim adequately. Peter M. Brown ( talk) 16:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
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The Original Barnstar |
Thanks! Mrken777 ( talk) 14:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC) |
Peter I am new here and trying to get acquainted.. I am unsure on everything. Can you tell me what other references I would need for my important information and edits to be approved? Thanks? Have a great day! Mrken777 ( talk) 14:06, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
You write,
Since I think that there would be no consensus if a Nature article from a couple of years ago contradicted a substantial body of opinion, I am trying to interpret your statement in light of this cladogram. It uses the term "Hexapoda" for a clade that includes Insecta, Collembola and Diplura as subclades. Is "Hexapoda as traditionally defined" something else? And what does "separately nested" mean in this context? I also do not know how to interpret the abbreviation "s. s." Thanks, Peter M. Brown ( talk) 18:49, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your help Peter .... I'm not a botanist! (as you can tell) Victuallers ( talk) 22:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, could you cast an eye at Eria if you have time, using your extensive understanding of how to set up a table of contents? It had a tiny section about species that have been moved to the genus Pinalia, but a proper "formerly placed here" section would be much larger and I think that would normally come after the main species list. Right now there is no table of contents that shows that section, and I don't know why. Thanks. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 19:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
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Archetype of the original barnstar |
To recognize the fundamental wisdom about wikipedia that you have so willingly shared; may it propagate and leave much descendant wisdom. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 20:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter,
I've just read your most recent comment on the auxiliary verb talk page. I wanted to leave you a message because this is one of the fields of research I work with. You are of course correct that especially English has a great versatility in usage of words and constructions with often entirely different functions and meanings seemingly represented by the same things.
If you're interested, I may be able to provide some pointers on some directions you could go in to rectify some of the challenge this presents. The primary root of why this seems so difficult within computational systems lies not in how English operates, but rather in the fact that most established theoretical frameworks either have missed or chosen to ignore major attributes of English grammar and syntax. For example, regarding auxiliaries, they do very little in English by themselves. In fact, tense, aspect, mood, etc -- all the functions normally attributed to auxiliaries -- require not just an auxiliary, but that auxiliary in a certain position subordinating the verb it modifies in a very specific way.
For a computational system to be able to figure out the proper meaning/function of a given word or group of words in any English construction, it has to be made to recognize this combination of attributes. Otherwise, the best it could do is narrow the choices down to the most likely.
It's entirely possible to build an accurate parser for English and if you get it to look for the right things, it should be very easy. But, it's can't be done if you limit its abilities to any of the "standard" frameworks that are out there. Drew.ward ( talk) 18:30, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, Is there a version of this template that allows say a hundred or so images, automatically breaks them into rows and permits the later insertion of one or more images without having to reshuffle the whole lot? cheers Paul venter ( talk) 09:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Looks like a more complex problem than I first thought.... I'm working on a List of Johannesburg garden birds in which, besides a straight list, I would like to see a compact gallery, with the option of adding images, since the list is certainly not complete. Paul venter ( talk) 13:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
That looks good - its only drawback is the amount of scrolling. Would it lend itself to being arranged in 2 or 3 columns, with descriptions below instead of beside? Paul venter ( talk) 07:50, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
It would take a lot of trial and error for me to arrive at something that works. Would you feel terribly put out if I asked you to set up a small practical example of what you think might work? It would be much appreciated. Paul venter ( talk) 07:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Peter,
Do you think those changes were vandalism? They don't seem to make any sense to me either. Drew.ward ( talk) 15:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Your comment at WT:MOS was measured and reasonable. Could you look at the actual RfC and comment there? -- Enric Naval ( talk) 11:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Why not? Subkingdom and Infrakingdom both redirect on the page Kingdom. Where should we speak about these concepts if they don't have their own articles? As you said, they are minor ranks, they are derived from the main rank Kingdom. As such, their evocation in a subsection is amply justified. I don't understand your point of view. -- Iossif63 ( talk) 18:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Hi, Peter. Thanks for answering my question on montane forests and contributing to the article.
It looks to me like "montane" has (at least) two meanings. One is "anything in the mountains", and the other is the montane zone. For instance, Ecology of the Sierra Nevada uses "lower montane" and "upper montane" for your "submontane" and "montane", as does this useful-looking reference. Also, the IUCN used to use only "montane" and "lowland", so we have a lot of Polbot stubs such as Olivaceous Siskin. (Now it doesn't discriminate altitudes at all.) It seems to me that the NPOV approach would be to cover all mountain forests at montane forest and mention that in some classifications, "montane" has a more restricted meaning. What do you think? — JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:33, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Hello. You have
a new message at Talk:Hybrid_Tea#Requested_move's talk page. —
SMcCandlish
Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ
Contrib.
18:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter. I just want to apologize for letting my irritation with the other editor there spill over in my discussion with you. I still feel the same on the meaning of nomenclature, but I regret my tone and impolite words in speaking to you. You are one of my favorite editors on Wikipedia and believe it or not I really do respect your opinion; so sorry! -- Tom Hulse ( talk) 03:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi!
I know you are busy with the cactus, but I hope you can help me out. On the Norwegian Wikipedia, we have since the beginning used a taxobox without ranks. This has been due to early influence from a single editor, which has since gone unchallenged until a year ago or so. Now, we finally have the consensus to change over to a ranked system, the only problem is that there seem to be no-one capable (or willing) of doing the coding of something as complex as a taxo-box. The bio-editors over at Norwegian WP are just just a handful of people, all of which seem to be as techically inclined as yours truly.
So, I had the bright idea to import and translate the old (non-auto) taxobox from English. I don't know anything about coding, but since the ranks are in latin, I suppose it should be possible to understand what bits need translation. The only problem is, I don't know how to find the code. Do you have access to it? If so, would it be possible for you to post the code on this test page? Petter Bøckman ( talk) 20:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Any actual translation of is something I could do, if someone could point me to what parts to translate. Ideally, I would like for it to be similar enough to be able to copy most, if not all, of an English taxobox into the Norwegian Wiki and gat a passable result. Not that the English WP have switched to the automated system, this is no longer relevant, but I guess I only have to translate the files that dictate the output, so that "ordo" comes out as Orden rather than Order and so forth. Petter Bøckman ( talk) 21:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, thanks for finding my spelling error, that's been in Endnote for ages! What a crazy business those orchid pages are, but at least that short one is hugely improved. Best wishes, Nadiatalent ( talk) 18:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Provided that it's accepted that you have to choose one system rather than another, and that this simply can't be done in a neutral way with a genus like Ophrys (and this does bother me but I can't see any way round it), then I agree that full synonym lists (plus redirects as appropriate) are needed. It's a pity that the WCSP doesn't allow a download in an easily machine processable form. You can get a checklist but it's just text, whereas what I'd like would be say a spreadsheet which mapped every synonym to its accepted name. This would make it much easier to prepare synonym lists. Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
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For being an allround good chap and a voice of reason in a world chaos (and saving my bacon whenever my spelling is sub-pari). Petter Bøckman ( talk) 18:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC) |
Hidden categories don't count; if an article doesn't have at least one visible content category on it, then it shows up on the uncategorized articles list — and it can't just be left there as a "special case". I don't know what other options there are, either, but one has to be found somehow, because the list cannot be left with any permanently uncategorizable pages sitting on it. Bearcat ( talk) 16:32, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Hiya,
I noticed that you changed the assessment of List of useful plants from "SL" to "List" because SL wasn't defined at WP:PLANTS#Assessment#Quality_scale. I found SL at WP:WikiProject Plants/Assessment#Quality scale when I looked ("Meets the criteria to be a List but is significantly incomplete, or needs considerable work to be useful as a complete list of links to a set of articles, or has other serious deficiencies."), and so I'm a little confused. Are the two different? Waitak ( talk) 02:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Botany#Where_to_go_now. Thank you. 512bits ( talk) 15:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, you might want to take a look here so that you'll be aware of something that you might encounter on orchid pages. Unfortunately, this is a far bigger jumble than I can foresee being able to clean up in any reasonable amount of time. Nadiatalent ( talk) 22:14, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Convention would be to leave minor things be if you feel they are "not an improvement," rather than detrimental, for clearly someone thought it was. In this case, the occurences of "light" are close together and obvious. In the altered form "night" occurs at th extremities of the sentence and the repetition is not as pronounced. -- Belg4mit ( talk) 13:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
You PRODed Pea bean whilst I was on a lengthy wikibreak in February of last year for some perfectly logical reasons. One effect was that there was no redirect left behind and nowhere to lodge any text about the Pea bean.I have just had the article Userfied and have re-worked it to try and ensure it fits with current understanding. My proposal is to insert the text into Phaseolus vulgaris as a section. Before doing so, I would appreciate your oversight of the proposed text at User:Velella/Pea bean. I wouldn't want to appear to be recreating an article by the back door. Regards Velella Velella Talk 19:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm attempting to revive the Plant article COTM, and since you're a member of WikiProject Plants, you're being notified about this hopeful revival. Please feel free to propose articles for collaboration, and thanks for your consideration! Northamerica1000 (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
| ![]() Last month's collaboration was: (none). To propose future collaborations, please contribute here! |
Apologies for the apparent tone of my recent edit summary at WP:MOS. It came across very terse and even pissy, but this is principally an artifact of the small max size of edit summaries. The point was that MOS after a lot of contention arrived at a continued (since 2008) consensus to not capitalize common names, and only threw WP:BIRDS a bone because a large enough number of them engage in WP:DIVA threats to go on editing strikes or quit the project if they don't get their way. I've predicted that this won't result in a lasting accord, only temporary peace, because it encourages everyone with a "I want the quirks of my journal's style to be added to MOS, too" peeve to start trying to modify MOS. We can't account for all of these preferences, or we might as well just delete the entire MOS, because every field has typographic and style and orthographic quirks, and they're very frequently contradictory (and they're all contraindicated by real-world general usage in mainstream publications and style guides). The insects project came to its own insular local consensus to just do what specialists in particular subfields like lepidoptery prefer, and essentially have no real standard. WP at large can't be bothered with such trivia, and this "do whatever you want" approach has been rejected at WT:MOS more than once on this issue, and consistently with regard to just about everything else, too (for any convention MOS settles on, about anything, there's someone somewhere who wants to change it for one reason or another, almost always something subject to WP:SSF). If the lepidoptery people can point to a universally accepted taxonomic authority in their field that issues an "official" list of common names and specifically demands capitalization of them, as is the case with birds, that's possibly a good basis for adding such an exception, until someone gets around to doing the RfC everyone's been suggesting, which will probably bury the idea of making such exceptions at all. The fact of the matter is that by very narrow, geeky convention, various journals on various life forms do prefer capitalization of common names in their in-house style (it's common in herpetology, for example), but we cannot account for this here. It's too random, and for every assertion that "it's just done this way in our field", there is always counter-evidence in favor of lower case (even in ornithology!), and the reasons for doing it in dense journal articles don't apply here (we have the luxury of writing in plain, clear English, and are not limited to excessively distilled, clipped prose in which ambiguities are harder to work around). Many laypeople's guidebooks, like everything published by T.F.H., also capitalize and boldface, too, but this is principally to make the common names stand out in pages and pages of near-identical entries. People confuse this with the journal usage, and fallaciously assert that this latter sort of style is "evidence" in favor of "convention", but it's pure coincidence. Reliable sources on English writing for a general audience never capitalize such things. There's nothing special about lepidoptery. It doesn't have a notably different convention nor any special backing for it. It's just that someone who cared to push their journals' practice here made enough noise about it that a project and a subguideline page mentioned it. As I've said before, the real problem with all this "capitalize because we're special" stuff is that almost every field on earth has people that insist on capitalizing things about that field in insider writing, from comic book collecting to soldiering to HVAC to neurosurgery. If they all got their way, virtually every single noun and noun phrase on Wikipedia would have to be capitalized, as if many centuries of English divergence from German never happened, because nearly everything is subject to some special[i]ty somewhere, from pasta to car parts. The only reason there's a "birds exception" at all for now is because of seven solid years of tendentious, threat-laden drama emanating from about 10 or 12 people in one project (more like 4 or 5 active players), in the face of constant criticism from all sorts of quarters. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I've just spotted " Clematis × jackmanii", and would value your advice; I know you've dealt both with hybrid taxa and with cultivars. In this case, I don't know which it is. I have seen it referred to both as "Clematis × jackmanii" and as "Clematis 'Jackmanii' ". I assume that they're the same thing (in practice at least), but I don't know which is the correct title. It makes a difference, because a taxon would take a {{ taxobox}}, while a cultivar would take {{ infobox cultivar}}. This article needs one or the other, but I can't tell which. Do you have any suggestions? -- Stemonitis ( talk) 12:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Science lovers wanted! | |
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Hi! I'm serving as the wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution Archives until June! One of my goals as resident, is to work with Wikipedians and staff to improve content on Wikipedia about people who have collections held in the Archives - most of these are scientists who held roles within the Smithsonian and/or federal government. I thought you might like to participate since you are interested in the sciences! Sign up to participate here and dive into articles needing expansion and creation on our to-do list. Feel free to make a request for images or materials at the request page, and of course, if you share your successes at the outcomes page you will receive the SIA barnstar! Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to your participation! Sarah ( talk) 01:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter, you might want to take a quick look at Talk:Theaceae since being forewarned might save you from spending time cleaning this sort of thing up; it is a bit reminiscent of the material that was added to orchid pages. Nadiatalent ( talk) 13:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
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The Original Barnstar | |
For your work in creating Melanthieae and dismantling the old circumscription of Zigadenus elegantly and accurately. Choess ( talk) 23:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter coxhead, I saw your message. You have made great edits really, so thanks a lot! Well, you have made a good guess of my Indian origin :). Well, as far as I see, the article needs only a few changes now. Actually I could not understand clearly what you told about the lead section. Would you explain a bit?-- Sainsf <^> (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, when I reverted your edit at Wikipedia:Categorization re "subcategory" I obviously failed to scroll down and see the other changes you made (although these are open to debate and perhaps reflective of WP:ENGVAR I had no intention of reverting them). Peter coxhead ( talk) 11:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Is Benzingia an Ackermania . Did I get this right?-- Traveler100 ( talk) 18:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Hello, How are you? I need your help. I ask you if you could enlarge Dipterocarpaceae making better known this group of trees in Wikipedia, adding links to "Dipterocarpaceae" and information about "Dipterocarpaceae" existence on topics as trees articles in tropical articles or botanical or biodiversity articles. Do you know people that could be interested about Dipterocarpaceae article? They are welcome too. Thank you very much. Curritocurrito ( talk) 11:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Peter, I just got a message on my talk page asking if it was necessary to keep cactus protected. I wonder what you think since you've put a lot of work into the article recently. I'm leaning toward removing the protection as a trial to see if our ENGVAR IP friend returns. I already watch the article and know that you're also on it. Any thoughts before I remove the protection? Cheers, Rkitko ( talk) 23:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Hello, How are you? I need your help. I thank you your help in the articles and I hope you help me again in future. I ask you: Can you find more people willing writing in tropical trees, genera and families? I ask you if you could enlarge some articles making better known this group of trees in Wikipedia, adding links to genera and families and writing information and asking people if they are interested in writing about topics as tropical trees articles, tropical forest articles or botanical or biodiversity articles. Do you know Wikipedia forums that could be interested about these type of articles? They are welcome too. I thank you very much.
I am from Spain and my mother language is not English language. Many country side areas, and Natural areas and Living beings are in Countries where population cannot collaborate with Wikipedia, but their Natural World and its highly economically valuable species are very important too in the human knowledge and developtment of the mankind. People should have information because these matters are important, not just a curiosity only. This unknow world is from Poles to ecuator, in unoccupied oceanic areas closely to Europe, in Deserts as Sahara, or whatever. But to me the main aim is to gather the abundant information disperse about living communities and living beings that have existed for millions of years because they are disappearing and in 20 years they will are not longer exist. Curritocurrito ( talk) 12:02, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
The article
Cactus you nominated as a
good article has been placed on hold
. The article is close to meeting the
good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See
Talk:Cactus/GA1 for things which need to be addressed.
Ciaran Sinclair (
talk)
12:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your thorough and detailed GA review. It is very useful to have such constructive criticism to put to use in other articles. With regard to over-technical terms, I find them in scientific papers and use them in articles because I don't know precisely what they mean myself. This is lazy I suppose, but I tried and failed to find out what a D-shape larva was when writing the article so I used the term and only found out it was another term for the better known veliger larva when you stimulated me to do so. What you said in your footnote about species/genus features is true. Sometimes the hardest part of writing the article is a good description of the species, the most important part from the point of view of the reader. Thanks again. Cwmhiraeth ( talk) 05:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, er, the rv you referred to was to the petal article, right? I wouldn't like you to think I reverted it from the sepal article just out of officiousness! As I read your summary, it sounded as though you thought I had zapped it because of the lack of citation. (Just asking, not kicking...) JonRichfield ( talk) 12:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Peter. In this edit to Cladistics, I challenge the attribution to James and Pourtless 2009 of the claim that " A decision as to whether a particular character is a synapomorphy or not may be challenged as involving subjective judgements," saying "Specified pages in the cited monograph contain no material relevant to the claim." The pages specified are 21 ff. Preparing to delete the material, I notice that you added it here. Perhaps you would like to reword your statement as well as modifying the reference? Other material in the paper certainly is relevant, though I don't see that it supports the claim adequately. Peter M. Brown ( talk) 16:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
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The Original Barnstar |
Thanks! Mrken777 ( talk) 14:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC) |
Peter I am new here and trying to get acquainted.. I am unsure on everything. Can you tell me what other references I would need for my important information and edits to be approved? Thanks? Have a great day! Mrken777 ( talk) 14:06, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
You write,
Since I think that there would be no consensus if a Nature article from a couple of years ago contradicted a substantial body of opinion, I am trying to interpret your statement in light of this cladogram. It uses the term "Hexapoda" for a clade that includes Insecta, Collembola and Diplura as subclades. Is "Hexapoda as traditionally defined" something else? And what does "separately nested" mean in this context? I also do not know how to interpret the abbreviation "s. s." Thanks, Peter M. Brown ( talk) 18:49, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your help Peter .... I'm not a botanist! (as you can tell) Victuallers ( talk) 22:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, could you cast an eye at Eria if you have time, using your extensive understanding of how to set up a table of contents? It had a tiny section about species that have been moved to the genus Pinalia, but a proper "formerly placed here" section would be much larger and I think that would normally come after the main species list. Right now there is no table of contents that shows that section, and I don't know why. Thanks. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 19:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
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Archetype of the original barnstar |
To recognize the fundamental wisdom about wikipedia that you have so willingly shared; may it propagate and leave much descendant wisdom. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 20:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC) |
Hi Peter,
I've just read your most recent comment on the auxiliary verb talk page. I wanted to leave you a message because this is one of the fields of research I work with. You are of course correct that especially English has a great versatility in usage of words and constructions with often entirely different functions and meanings seemingly represented by the same things.
If you're interested, I may be able to provide some pointers on some directions you could go in to rectify some of the challenge this presents. The primary root of why this seems so difficult within computational systems lies not in how English operates, but rather in the fact that most established theoretical frameworks either have missed or chosen to ignore major attributes of English grammar and syntax. For example, regarding auxiliaries, they do very little in English by themselves. In fact, tense, aspect, mood, etc -- all the functions normally attributed to auxiliaries -- require not just an auxiliary, but that auxiliary in a certain position subordinating the verb it modifies in a very specific way.
For a computational system to be able to figure out the proper meaning/function of a given word or group of words in any English construction, it has to be made to recognize this combination of attributes. Otherwise, the best it could do is narrow the choices down to the most likely.
It's entirely possible to build an accurate parser for English and if you get it to look for the right things, it should be very easy. But, it's can't be done if you limit its abilities to any of the "standard" frameworks that are out there. Drew.ward ( talk) 18:30, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi Peter, Is there a version of this template that allows say a hundred or so images, automatically breaks them into rows and permits the later insertion of one or more images without having to reshuffle the whole lot? cheers Paul venter ( talk) 09:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Looks like a more complex problem than I first thought.... I'm working on a List of Johannesburg garden birds in which, besides a straight list, I would like to see a compact gallery, with the option of adding images, since the list is certainly not complete. Paul venter ( talk) 13:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
That looks good - its only drawback is the amount of scrolling. Would it lend itself to being arranged in 2 or 3 columns, with descriptions below instead of beside? Paul venter ( talk) 07:50, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
It would take a lot of trial and error for me to arrive at something that works. Would you feel terribly put out if I asked you to set up a small practical example of what you think might work? It would be much appreciated. Paul venter ( talk) 07:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Peter,
Do you think those changes were vandalism? They don't seem to make any sense to me either. Drew.ward ( talk) 15:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Your comment at WT:MOS was measured and reasonable. Could you look at the actual RfC and comment there? -- Enric Naval ( talk) 11:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Why not? Subkingdom and Infrakingdom both redirect on the page Kingdom. Where should we speak about these concepts if they don't have their own articles? As you said, they are minor ranks, they are derived from the main rank Kingdom. As such, their evocation in a subsection is amply justified. I don't understand your point of view. -- Iossif63 ( talk) 18:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)