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Joachim Christian Timm

I've put a translation of sorts at Joachim Christian Timm. I believe that I understand the German except for some difficult historic terminology, which a German colleague doesn't entirely understand either. The German original article is a bit defective in this respect: it seems to have copied terms from sources without any attempt to gloss or wikilink them (except one term which is linked to a disambiguation page). The format of the citations is not very good either, so my attempted improvements could be incorrect.

I haven't done any wikilinking: can I leave that to you? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:46, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure; I've already done the opening paragraph, and will take care of the others later today. I wonder if articles translated from other Wikipedias are eligible for WP:DYK? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:20, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Got to it sooner than I expected. Thanks very much for taking this on. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:45, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For stepping up to make Prep at DYK, going above and beyond to keep things moving smoothly on a complex project that means a lot to Misplaced Pages. As a plant ninja, you capably went to the Root of the problem and Stemmed major chaos. We all hope you never Leaf us! Sharktopus 00:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Mochtar Lubis (and 4 others)

I have addressed your concerns at the nomination page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Again. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

— Bill william compton 04:05, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In case you hadn't noticed...

I'd started reviewing at Talk:Carl Linnaeus/GA1. Another editor is helping. It'd be great to get this to FA and get on the mainpage....Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

— Bill william compton 18:58, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

--Sodabottle (talk) 06:16, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK on Dougie dance

FYI, pls see Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#Friday.2C July 29.2C spot the issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk)

German fern article

Yes, after I'd messed about fixng the link, I realized that the German version was much less good than ours. I didn't remove the template myself, preferring to alert the editor who added it: see User_talk:Ushakaron#German_Fern_article. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:22, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't sure whether you'd seen the article, or were simply fixing the link. You might have noticed that the editor who placed the template is actively working on fossil "pteridophyte" articles such as Ibyka and Sphenophyllales, and could probably use a bit of guidance as the primary source for additions seems to be the old web pages I wrote for UCMP. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Taxobox needed

You might like to look at this page: Splachnum sphaericum, which at the least needs a taxobox, but may need more... Peter coxhead (talk) 19:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Stemonitis has now supplied a taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. My ISP balked on me, and I've been almost entirely off-line for about a month while I got new service. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I noticed you hadn't been around; welcome back! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Good to see you back, Petey. Your Carl Linnaeus GA nomination has almost passed, but just needs referencing for the section on Linnean taxonomy. Any citations you can provide would be most helpful; it would be a shame for the nomination to fail at this late stage. I am doing what I can, but I'm struggling on this one last section. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha. I'll take a look, and should be able to provide some referencing. It may take a few days though, since we are nearing the end of a term, so I'm busy during the week. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello EncycloPetey! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation also appears on other accounts you may have, please complete the survey once only. If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey

Wiktionary Latin request

Hi EncycloPetey. Would you give a look here when you get a chance? Thanks! 68.54.4.162 (talk) 02:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Limnocharitaceae

See my comment at User_talk:Rkitko#Limnocharitaceae. Good luck with your efforts – I found the Asparagales quite enough (and I didn't double-check all the authorities). Peter coxhead (talk) 22:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	After reviewing the revision history for Book of Habakkuk, I said to myself, this guy just has to get a barnstar. Keep up the great work! Magister Scienta (Editor Review) 04:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Flowers

Indeed many leaves have no flowers, but all flowers are reproductive organs of plants not plants or plant groups in themselves.Osborne 09:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I quite agree with your comment on my "Talk" - some words do have more than one meaning! A example is "chronic" which means ong lasting or lingering. However many use it to mean very bad. I fear doctors and their patients misunderstand each other when this is used. However to use the word "flower" to refer to the whole plant is rather casual for Misplaced Pages - in my openion! Osborne 10:33, 14 December 2011 (UTC) By the way - in Wikiedia should I reply to your note/comment on my talk or yours? How best to do it?Osborne 10:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Asexual Reproduction in Liverworts, i.e. Marchantiophyta

Good morning EncycloPetey, I noticed that you reverted my contribution to Marchantiophyta. Since the 'bandwidth' of edit comments is too narrow for detailed discussion, I hope you don't mind if we talk here?

The reason for wishing to contribute to what is quite a technical article is that many people's first (and very possibly only) contact with the liverworts is likely to be a biology lesson or assignment, and that in turn is very likely to mention differing forms of reproduction. The article currently has detailed coverage of the sexual life-cycle but not of the asexual; and the asexual seems to be important, both as a topic in biology and of course in the actual survival of liverworts, and it shouldn't be hard to show that the topic is notable enough for a new section.

Would it be all right with you if I put a revised draft up for your consideration? It could be a) here; b) on the Marchantiophyta talk page; or c) in the article. If you let me know what you'd like, I'll take it from there. With my best wishes Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It might be best to first work out here what kind of information might be appropriate to include, how it should be sourced, and where it should be placed. Working on it in the article directly would be a bad idea, since Marchantiophyta is a GA-rated article and the sources that you are using are unsuitable for a GA. The article you used as your primary reference was a self-published set of course notes that (a) contained errors, (b) was intended as only a general survey of the whole plant kingdom, and (c) was itself almost entirely unsourced despite making some extraordinary claims. Such sources are not acceptable on Misplaced Pages.

Note also that just because a biology lesson might include Marchantia or Lunularia as an example of asexual reproduction with gemmae does not mean that the topic is important to liverworts as a whole. These forms of asexual reproduction are extremely rare among liverworts. Yes, Marchantia is often used in biology courses as a liverwort example, but it is highly atypical. Using it as an example of a liverwort is like using a platypus as a "typical" mammal. Misplaced Pages should not cater to this bias, and in fact Misplaced Pages policy is to present a non-biased article. If information applies only to Marchantia, then it should be presented at the article on Marchantia. If it applies to the family Marchantiaceae, then it should be presented there.

It is also important to consider the view of Misplaced Pages as a whole. Will the asexual reproduction information be repeated on multiple pages? Which articles should spend time discussing it. Probably the best place for it is (1) on the Bryophyte article, (2) on the general article about Vegetative reproduction, and (3) the gemmae information at Gemma (botany). That alone will require repeating a lot of the information three times, and thus three places that will need to be kept updated. Spreading the information to more articles should be done via short statements with links directing to the appropriate location, rather than creating whole sections about this topic in multiple locations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

GA-rated, aha... Thank you for your detailed and informative reply. Obviously, yes, we don't want to repeat stuff too much. One point perhaps worth making here is that since the Liverworts/Marchantiophytes are now considered basically separate from 'Bryophytes' we possibly shouldn't worry too much about what happens there. On reflection I think that Gemma and Veg repro are the main places for this, so we arguably don't need a whole section, but there should certainly be links to something asexual from Marchantiophyta. Will you put in a link or two, or would you like me to do that very briefly? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

If you can provide a well-sourced statement or two, that might fit at the end of the Life cycle section. I've been meaning to thoroughly expand Moss, Marchantiophyta, and Bryophyte with a lot more text and many more references for some time, but have other things occupying my time for now. Bryophyte is still a meaningful article, even if it is not a formal taxon. The mosses and liverworts still share many aspects of their biology, life cycle, habitat, and so on by virtue of lacking vascular tissue. The article should eventually cover these shared aspects. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

References formatting

Thank you, EncycloPetey! The formatting on Riella was ideal for my purposes. I'm quite looking forward to contributing to the botanical efforts here. Fascinoma (talk) 06:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Old Testament navigation templates

Saw your post on Fastily (talk · contribs). Should the five navigation templates be referred to collectively as a pentateuch? --GraemeL 18:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for for sharing the gift of laughter! --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It's nice to run into you

at Twelve Prophets of Aleijadinho. Years ago I made a pilgrimage (of the non-religious kind) to visit this site and hope to post some photos shortly. Life is supposed to be interesting. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 17:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

However I see that you have more pictures and are still working away there so I shall retire for a bit, let you get your work done, then check back in. Carptrash (talk) 17:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

My best book on Aleijadinho, is, unfortunately, also in Portuguese. Great pictures of his work, but..... Still, we soldier on, and I will be trailing behind you, doing what I can. There is already one word that I thought "oh, lost in translation - we can do better than this", but now I've forgotten it, but it will not get away. Carptrash (talk) 17:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I too come and go on the WWW, my wife and I share our connection on-line, and after several years of ....... negotiations, wikipedia came in second. Meanwhile I just discovered this - and reading page 1 leads me to believe that there will be some interesting stuff here. Carptrash (talk) 18:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised this morning to note that someone else discovered one of my pictures of a prophet and posted it here. Life is full of surprises and mostly that is a good thing. Carptrash (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for your help with the Fruit and Tree categories deletion problem! Last night it seemed so unlikely that this problem could be resolved that I was considering just putting "retired" on my user page as one final act for this morning. Now there's another person joining in as well. Things are looking up. I hope that a portrait of a handsome small mammal is something that you find appealing.

Nadiatalent (talk) 18:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution noticeboard: Biblical cosmology

I've lodged a notice at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard over my editing dispute with CarlAude at Biblical cosmology. Since you made a comment on the Talk page of the article I thought I should inform you, but I don't know if you want to get involved. (I'm simply asking for a mediator, but you might have some useful input - it's always dangerous to have just two parties involved, a third would be welcome). PiCo (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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DYK for djed article

Please see my response to your comment on the DYK nom of djed.Regstuff (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• Please see I have added to the article and the DYK nom of djed.Regstuff (talk) 07:10, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Habbakuk

Hello. I noticed that you were looking for Jewish references for this book, and that you had not been given any traditional Jewish sources. Perhaps you could get ahold of the Judaica Press version of the Twelve (Mikraot Gedolot with translation), although I don't have a copy (I prefer to stay away from translations altogether) so I do not know if it has a separate introduction. Matters where Habbakuk is known to traditional Jews include the fact that the prayer in it is read of the second day of Shavuot (Pentacost) (outside Israel) and the famous statement in Talmud Bavli Makot 24a, that ends, "Hababkuk came and stood them on one, "And a righteous man shall live by his faith".". (I.e., the he found a single principle to enable one to keep all 613 commandments, q.v.).

Good luck!Mzk1 (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean Book of Habakkuk or Habakkuk? I am currently revising both.

I tried looking for the Judaica Press Mikraot Gedolot with translation, but could not find it. If you have the publication details, I'd be very appreciative. Most of the books and articles listed in the Reference of the article on the Book of Habakkuk I now own in my personal library, and I am trying to expand that collection even further. I did recently (yesterday!) receieve a copy of The Jewish Study Bible by the Jewish Publication Society, which includes introductions to Habakkuk, the Twelve, and the Nevi'im. Information from these essays will be included and cited. I also have been using the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia in completing my revisions.

I am currently doing a thoroguh expansion and revision of the Habakkuk article off-line. Normally I would work on-line in the revision, but this time there is so much material to be sorted through and added that it would become very messy to do it within Misplaced Pages. However, I hope to have the revised text and citations in before this weekend (God willing).

If you can provide fuller text and complete citations for the statements you've made at the end of your post above, then I will gladly include them in the articles where appropriate. My own knowledge of Hebrew traditions concerning Biblical figures is quite limited, and the same can be said for my knowledge of Catholic and Orthodox traditions, so I have had to do quite of lot of exploratory searching of the literature.

Likewise, I have had a singularly difficult time locating details concerning the traditional tomb sites in Israel. The Habakkuk article didn't even mention either of these sites a week ago, and internet searches in English have not been fruitful. IF you are capable of searching out information in Hebrew, particular as regards the earliest mention of these traditions, date and details of the construction of the buildings at the sites, and information about possible care, oversight, and preservation by some Israeli government agency, then that would be a welcome addition to the text.

Thanks for writing to me, --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I didn't even realize they were two articles! I don't see those sources as traditional, or at least not Orthodox. (JPS is conservative, JE is, well, that's another story. Of course this is all usable; I am just sugggesting a broader perspective in addition.) Did you try asking atthe Judaism Project?

One note on JPS. The first edition is pretty close to traditional, but the second goes off a bit into "scientific" stuff. I think the first JPS is as close to universal as you will get.

Here is Makkot http://www.halakhah.com/pdf/nezikin/Makkoth.pdf. Search for 24a; should be on the second try. You can skip the detail about David. Just be careful; they obviously aren't saying Habakuk replaced the commandments. Do you need a source that the prayer in Habakukthat is the haftorah? Shouldn't be too hard to find; let me know. In fact, this haftorah is unususal in that after the first two verses, an Aramaic poem (Yetziv Pitgam) is read before continuing, at least in many Ashkenazi synagogues.

I found the Judaiaca Press Bible for sale, but not an entry into contents. I suggested it because it is sort of in the middle between Artscroll and Soncino. I'm sure you can find stuff on line, but they would just be personal opinions. (Unfortunately, so are many RS's. :-( )

Thank you for listening.Mzk1 (talk) 21:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

More information needed about File:Lila Sägezähnchen.JPG

Hello, EncycloPetey!

It was really helpful of you to upload File:Lila Sägezähnchen.JPG, but in order to keep new images, we need to know their exact source and copyright status.

If you can edit the description page and add that information, that would be great. If you're not sure how or would like some help, please ask us at the media copyright questions page and we'll be happy to assist you.

Thanks again!Template:Z133 --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 16:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Please ask your programmer to teach you to read. The information is there, and was copied directly from Commons for DYK, just as it should be. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:10, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't figure out what happened there. ImageTaggingBot looked at the picture during nine consecutive runs; for the first eight, it saw the {{c-uploaded}} tag and skipped the image, but on the ninth, it seems to have encountered a blank image description page. --Carnildo (talk) 07:44, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK note

Hey EncycloPetey. I've started a review for Template:Did you know nominations/Twelve Prophets of Aleijadinho. Re: above message: don't let that bot talk down to you! Tell it you'll put sugar in its gas tank. The Interior (Talk) 02:40, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor edits

I would just like to inform you that you recently made a "minor edit" to the following article which would not have been considered a minor edit. A minor edit is not just any small change to an article. Usually, minor edit is synonymous with copy-edit or improvements in spelling and grammar. If you believe your edit has the chance of being disputed (such as your re-arrangement of the sections, which, while I'm in agreement with, still has the chance of being disputed) then it is best not to mark it as minor. Please see Help:Minor edit for more info. I just wanted to give you a polite heads up as editors sometimes get into the bad habit of doing this. Keep on keepin on, Cadiomals (talk) 04:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

You may want to read that page yourself. Included under minor edits is: "Formatting that does not change the meaning of the page". Moving sections into a different order without changing any of the text would qualify under that. There is nothing on the page you have pointed to that indicates it is not minor if there is a chance it will be disputed, and in my experience any edit of any kind to any page has a chance of being disputed. Thanks for your polite concern, but I really did mean that the edit was minor, and am experienced enough to know the difference. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:18, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Books of the Old Testament

Since you offered, this has now been closed. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ 17:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ 22:41, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Sensu POV

EP, please explain what part of the paragraph you removed struck you as having any POV other than the nature of the disciplines in question? You surely are not suggesting that the nature of geological taxonomy is isomorphic with biological taxonomy? If so, then how? And in any case, what would that have to do with POV? Do you regard the matter as contentious in some way? As for citations, what sort of citation do you consider as necessary when practically every term is linked to the appropriate article? Am I missing something? JonRichfield (talk) 20:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The entire paragraph was a personal opinion, with no supported factual content. Opinions are, by nature, POV, especially when completely unsupported. I take issue with almost every assertion in the added paragraph regarding the nature of biological taxonomy. Please note that links are not the same as citations; Misplaced Pages, by explicit statement, does not not consider itslef to be a "reliable" source. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

While appreciating the largeness of your views, "...entire paragraph was a personal opinion, with no supported factual content..." as a POV, it does not enable me to engage usefully with your demands. A POV must comprise some sort of proposition. If the proposition is not assailable, for instance if it invokes common cause in proper context, it is hardly POV. You claim (so far falsely) to take issue, but you do no such thing; instead you fob me off with a vacuous denial. If you wish to criticise, that is very proper, even welcome, but valid criticism has its own disciplines. Please specify some of your disagreements with the assertions. Is one of them with say, "In biology distinct taxa notionally arise from largely logically digital processes of adaptive selection limited by the nature of storage and transmission of information in the medium of nucleic acids."? I might well understand your demanding that I rephrase, but what is your problem with the substance? I would be fascinated to read your rebuttals, or how in general you would unify the bases of geological and biological taxonomies. You would allocate granites and sandstones their own phyla perhaps?

You also put me into a Munrovian "embarrassing position" by confusion of the functions of citations and links. If I make a passing statement that is assailable on grounds of its plausibility, lack of context, or novelty, but that I can support with a citation, then a citation is in order. If OTOH, it is a matter of general knowledge that is dealt with routinely in major articles of its own, each supported by a stack of proper citations, then a link is altogether proper. It would in fact be improper for me to include an essay, together with supporting citations on nucleic acids in biology in an article on "sensu", to which the details are irrelevant and the topic is tangential. That is occasion for links. If matters were otherwise, there would be little use for links in WP at all. As things stand, too many articles include a great deal of material, including citations, that should have been omitted in favour of links. In our example, should I have cited C&W's 1953 article in support of the NA remarks? That citation appears in the primary articles on the material. How about the E. coli-elephant comment? That is cited in the linked Monod article (Though I confess I would have been embarrassed to demand a citation for that one!) What value would such redundant citations in this article have added? JonRichfield (talk) 10:19, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

As I say, the entirety was unacceptable, and I could find no germ of a salvagable idea contained within the additional paragraph. A throrough point-by-point criticism would have taken hours to write and been to little benefit. I can provide a few specific examples to try to demonstrate the inextricability of the errors and POV from the section. For example: "taxa notionally arise from...digital processes of adaptive selection", which is a core portion of just one of the sentences has two serious errors. The first problem is that adaptive selection is not demonstrably "digital", as the traits upon which selection acts are typically expressed in a normal distribution within the population. Selection acts upon the phenotype" of populations, not the "genotype" of individuals, so the method of encoding the information is irrelevant to understanding the selective process; there is no direct action upon the genes themselves but rather the phenotypes expressed. So, if you wish to claim that selection is "digital", you must cite that it is so. Secondly, in this same portion of a statement, you call taxa something that "notionally" arise, but then discuss selection. This, whether purposefully or unintentionally, conflates the taxa as perceived "real" units in nature with the idea that they are constructed categories in the minds of taxonomists. That point in itself is a matter of considerable debate, and so cannot be inserted casually into a taxonomic article.

There is, as I say, far far more to be criticized but it would not be especially constructive for me to do so. The elephants and E. coli statement alone is used completely out of context; is controversial; and is even passed off as wrong by modern geneticists, the field in which it actually has original context. You have, however, hit the nail on the head in your own response above. You say that it "would in fact be improper for me to include an essay", and that is correct. what you included was an essay, and an encyclopedia is not the place for an essay. It is entirely the wrong kind of tone, focus, content, and even method. And including an essay comparing two fields of systematics in an article about the use of "sensu" is doubly inappropriate, as it does not pertain to the matter of discussion. An essay is properly a position paper, and in taking a position, you necessarily take a POV. This should not be done on Misplaced Pages. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:13, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The whole article is full of material which is inappropriate to an encyclopedia. To give just one example: "These finer distinctions may well help in expressing intended meanings more flexibly, but they need not always be taken too seriously." It needs a major re-write, which would I think involve removing a great deal more than EncycloPetey did. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:04, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Peter, I have responded in effect in the discussion page of Sensu. Cheers, JonRichfield (talk) 10:19, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Stomata revert

Just curious about the white spots on this image - do you know what they are?

. Regards: Greg5030 (talk) 22:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with conifer morphology to say with certainty. They could be anything from flakes of cuticular wax to depression pits for stomata. However, this is almost certainly not a pine branch. Pine needles have a characteristic base that isn't present in this photo. however, I couldn't make a guess at the correct genus without knowking the locality, whether the tree was native there, and probably a mature seed cone. You might be able to get better information at the talk page for WP:PLANTS, where there are some folks more experienced with conifers. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Biblical cosmology

I've returned to this article. I've outlined in the Talk page what I would like to do. You might like to look in, since you were taking an interest earlier. PiCo (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

nomina illegitima

About the illegitimate names in the 1910-1930 interval, what I've seen is (1) within the genus Rosa, that might hinge on dismissing an 1880 name as invalid, and (2) two in Brassicaceae where genus transfer was involved, and that don't seem to involve applying the Kew Rule (which ought to have disappeared around 1905). When I get a chance to spend some time in the library, I'll read the introductions to as many of the Codes as are there, to see what are said to be the major changes, and perhaps home in on the problem that way. It is rather a sad situation, because my first thought was that the Rosa taxonomist was batty. P.S. It is so refreshing to see Latin being used; I rely in it quite a lot in publications where the main language is something that I can't even read; not that I can produce passable Latin, just reading it is enormously useful. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Metzgeriales

I find this area very interesting. Thanks for correcting my mistake and explaining it. ?oygul (talk) 04:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Drphilharmonic

Hey EncycloPetey, I saw you didn't block the IP, 76.173.217.206 (talk · contribs · info · WHOIS). Is that on purpose? Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• That's not so relevant anymore, maybe, but I'm wondering--should you not have let someone else block the editor, given that you have reverted them a bunch of times and this is not a clear-cut case of vandalism? Drmies (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

  The IP gets blocked by default, and you can verify that the status of the IP is currently blocked. Drphilharmonic was not blocked for vandalism, but for violation of the 3-revert rule. He was warned against violating the rule (for the second time in less than a month), and he reverted 5 times over three other editors. I recommend reading Drphilharmonic's own comments on his own talk page to see the situation. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• Please see my response to your note, on my talk page. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Brassicaceae/specifiers etc.

Hello EncycloPetey. I get the impression that User:Drmies has run with this subject matter as far as they wish, so I thought it preferable to continue here. I hope you don't mind my pursuing this particular question - it's really for my own interest rather than because I'm pushing a view (and it's all rather academic as far as the article is concerned, as that has now been re-worded). Anyway, regarding the use of "has" v. "have" in "one of the eight plant family names" etc, I think your examples of other use of specifiers are not comparable in this instance. "One of the cities has fallen" is specifying only one city out of several - the other cities have not fallen - hence the singular use of the verb. However "one of the eight plant family names that have accepted alternative names" is including Brassicaceae with the other seven - all of the eight have accepted alternative names not ending with the suffix - hence it (Brassicaceae) is not being specified in an exclusive way. The equivalent cities statement would be something like "London is one of the nine cities that have a port that is protected by a tidal barrier"; it would be incorrect to write "London is one of the nine cities that has a port that is protected by a tidal barrier". The first use of the word "that" effectively trumps the earlier "one of" specifier, as it itself specifies the nine cities (or eight plant family names), which of course are plural. I think the sentence construction is complicated by the double use of the word "that", the first of which refers to a plural (the nine cities or eight plant family names), the second to a singular ("a port" or "an accepted alternative name"). The other example you give (using the specifier "either") is of course not comparable because "either" does indeed specify a singular. ? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Your example of "one of the cities has fallen" is sturctured without a dependent clause, and so isn't a comparable example. A better example would be "one of the cities that has fallen". I do undersatnd what you are saying, and there are situations where I would agree with you about the use of the plural, but since the subject is "Brassicaceae" / "one", I interpret botht he prepositional phrase and dependent clause pointing back to that referent. Your "London is one..." I would likewise interpret that way. Yes, the other cities have ports of that sort, but they are not being discussed. Compare "London is one city that has..." with "London is one of the cities that has...", and notice that both sentences are saying exactly the same thing. The only difference is that the second phrasing moves "city" into a prepositional phrase so that more descriptives may be included. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "one of the cities has fallen" is not a comparable example, but that indeed was the point I was making. If you revisit the dialogue at Drmies's talk page, you will see that originally that line was not my example, but rather your own. (I hope that I do not appear indignant about this, as that is not my mood. I am just curious). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 11:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Romania

Hi! From your edits, it looks like you might be interested in contributing to WikiProject Romania. It is a project aimed at organizing and improving the quality and accuracy of articles related to Romania. Thanks and best regards!

--Codrin.B (talk) 06:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thankspam

Hey, happy to see you can join us for lunch on Saturday! :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking forawrd to it. I actually recognized a couple of the names of prospective attendees. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick reminder about this, and that you can find location info etc. on the meetup page. Regards, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Stories Project

Hi! It was nice to meet you last weekend! Would you be interested in coming in to the office for a one-on-one interview? Is there a time that works for you?

Victor Grigas (talk) 17:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Coming in to the office requires a rather long trip on a day off. I might be able to pop down the week after next, when I have a week off from work and will want to visit the UC Berkeley library and Jepson Herbarium for some research. Failing that, we might have to do something by e-mail. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear EncyclopPetey,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Misplaced Pages administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Encylopedia of Earth

Hi, I noticed your revert to an addition to Plant based on the Encyclopedia of Earth. I know nothing about it, but am revising Cactus presently where it's used as a source (by a previous editor I hasten to add). Superficially it looks reliable; can you enlighten me? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It is a collaborative on-line encyclopedia, just one step removed from being a wiki. The article writers are frequently writing well outside their area of expertise, and I've seen some really weird content given undue emphasis as a result. I wouldn't use it as a source at all. For example, the author of their "cactus" article (and author of many of their articles) is C. Michael Hogan, who is a physicist. His article on the cactus says that most cacti have a high woody content to their stems, which I rather doubt as there are many small and fleshy cacti. It's a gross over-generlization at best. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:59, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I'll look at what it's used for in Cactus and find a better source. (There are quite a few rather poor web sources put there by earlier editors which need sorting.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

A bit late, sorry, I'm always late at replying

--Z 12:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Areceae stubs

Greetings! A stub template or category which you created has been nominated for renaming or deletion at Misplaced Pages:Stub types for deletion. The stub type most likely doesn't meet Misplaced Pages requirements for a stub type, through failure to meet standards relating to the name, scope, current stub hierarchy or likely size, as explained at Misplaced Pages:Stub. Please feel free to make any comments at WP:SFD regarding this stub type, and in future, please consider proposing new stub types first at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals! This message is a boilerplate, left here as a courtesy, and should not be considered personal in nature. Dawynn (talk) 14:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Input sought

Please see Talk:Botany#Botany_article_structure_and_concerns. Thank you.512bits (talk) 01:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Article protection

I noticed you've rightly been protecting some articles lately. Although it's outside your usual area, please consider Ape. This dif shows a large number of entirely time-wasting edits throughout the whole of February. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Good call. There seem to be certain times of the year when major topic articles suddenly are hit by waves of vandalism or bizarre non-constructive edits. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Botany genus question

Look at Sarcodes and Monotropa (both genus articles). At the very top of the article, the title Monotropa is italicized, but in the Sarcodes article this is not so. On wikipedia which way is it supposed to be and how do I change it to make it so? I made some edits to Sarcodes too.512bits (talk) 22:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

If the name is omitted from the taxobox, the title is italicized.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, so what other ranks in taxonomy get italicized? I also guess there's a way to do it without the taxobox.512bits (talk) 01:31, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

There's some detailed information at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (flora)#Italicization. --Melburnian (talk) 01:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.512bits (talk) 01:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Book of Habakkuk

Here you changed BC to BCE in the article Book of Habakkuk. This is not allowed, as it says in WP:ERA. Performing a huge string of short edits (like you did) instead of performing just a few is also frowned upon if I'm not mistaken. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC))

The policy on dates is not to prefer either one or the other. There is nothing about such a change being "not allowed". The change that I performed made the internal dating fora=mat consistent, which is what WP:ERA states should be done. There is no policy about the number of edits; you are mistaken about that. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The entire article had been using AD/BC since its creation until you decided all by yourself to change it to CE/BCE. WP:ERA prohibits such an action. Instead, you're meant to provide a very good reason on the talk page for changing it. However, you've never written anything on that talk page. You broke the rule and now you're making it worse by starting an edit war in the article and telling me off on my talk page even though you broke the rule, not me. Your excuse of "I made it consistent" is wrong anyway, since the format was already entirely consistent. You're wrong; just stop being difficult and stop messing up the encyclopaedia. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 06:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC))

No, the article was a mix of BC and BCE before my edit, and I changed only the article summary to match the body of the article. It is you who chose to make a wholesale "illegal" change without discussion to start an edit war. Please do not engage in such behavior again. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by an uninvolved editor - For the record, I've had to warn WP Editor 2011 previously for edit-warring, but I don't believe he was entirely at fault here. Prior to your December 5 edits at Book of Habakkuk, the article contained 3 occurrences of BC and 2 of BCE. Two of the mentions were links to 7th century BC and 598 BC. The first version of the article used "B.C.", not BCE. By the time you first edited the article in April 2006, the article contained 2 BC references and no mentions of BCE. Using the same criteria we use for determining date formats and English variants, "BC" was clearly the established form, especially given the links to 7th century BC and 598 BC. However, in a string of 107 edits in December 2011 that was interrupted only once by a reversion of the "BC" to "BCE" changes, you added 4 BCEs and replaced 1 "BC" with "BCE". I can see how WP Editor 2011 thought this was a breach of WP:ERA as BC was the established format and you had sought no consensus to change that, as is required by WP:ERA. Arguing that your changes were made because "the article was a mix of BC and BCE before my edit" and saying "The change that I performed made the internal dating fora=mat consistent, which is what WP:ERA states should be done" falls flat, because the article is still a mix of BC and BCE, due to the existence of 7th century BC and 598 BC. For consistency, as required by WP:ERA, the article should really be changed to use one format. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The struck-through content above has been posted at Talk:Book of Habakkuk#BC/BCE. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:39, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

You don't think it was a bit inappropriate to block an editor for edit warring, when you yourself were the one engaged in an edit war with the editor you blocked? This appears to be a violation of WP:INVOLVED, namely using your administrative tools to stop another editor from reverting your own edits. However, perhaps there are details about this that I'm overlooking, but would you please mind clarifying this? - SudoGhost 02:31, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

In response to this, I'm afraid the statement that "WP Editor 2011 did not make that article consistent with the original version." isn't accurate. The original version of the article is not from December, it is much older than that. The original version did in fact use only BC, not a mix of the two, therefore WP Editor 2011 did make the article consistent with the original version. In fact, until you inserted BCE into the article in 2008, the article had consistently used BC for seven years.

Aside from that insertion, the only other mention of BCE in the "pre-December" version of the article was an arbitrary change from BC to BCE, which according to WP:ERA, should not have been made. While the statement that it was using BC consistently from 12 December isn't accurate, it is accurate to say that the article consistently used BC prior to your lone insertion of BCE, the only other instance of BCE being an WP:ERA violation. Therefore I can certainly see the logic that BC is the "consistent" version, and is undoubtedly the oldest and most consistent version. - SudoGhost 05:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the lone change by an IP, and frankly don't see that it's relevant for my actions. Few editors would scan four years of an article's history for such details before standardizing style. An arbitrary choice to standardize was made, and an editor now wants to change that. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:ERA says "Do not arbitrarily change from one era style to the other on any given article. Instead, attempt to establish a consensus for change at the talk page." Your changes didn't standardise the article, as there were still two uses of "BC". --AussieLegend (talk) 14:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If you are merely acting in an administrative capacity, you are indifferent between BCE and BC on the article, correct, and you would have no problem with someone putting the whole article as "BC." Please confirm that here. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 12:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I am indifferent in that either system is acceptable to me, and I have used both systems in the past. I do believe, now that a discussion has opened, that there are reasons to use one system over the other for this particular article, but I do not believe that one system should be favored over the other generally. However, the AN/I discussion has already been closed, before either person involved was able to participate, so the point is moot. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

WP Editor 2011 wouldn't have been able to participate, as you had blocked him. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, he would have, as he was unblocked long before the discussion was closed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I believe you have violated WP:INVOLVED. What can you do to convince me you will no longer use your tools in content disputes in which you have an opinion, to enforce your opinion? Hipocrite (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I've already replied above (edit conflict). The AN/I on the issue was pushed through without my participation; it is now closed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

That's nice. I'm willing to file an WP:RFAr, given that you had an opinion on something, you reverted to your preferred version, and then blocked your partner in edit warring. Please convince me this will not continue, or resign your tools. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

You are free to take any actions elsewhere that you wish, but the matter has already been resolved. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It hasn't, the AN/I discussion is ongoing, and the WP:INVOLVED issue has not been resolved. - SudoGhost 14:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I've been to the AN/I board, and the issue was closed. No further discussion is to be posted. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The issue was closed because the issue was thought resolved, then you commented about how you weren't WP:INVOLVED, which changed the fact that the issue was thought resolved. Although you are of course not required to comment there, it is not up to you to determine if "further discussion is to be posted", because the issue has not "already been resolved", nor is the the issue closed. - SudoGhost 14:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, just to clarify - you still believe your initial block was valid, you believe at the time you made that block, you were not involved and were merely acting in an administrative capacity, and if you had to do it over again, you'd make that block again? Hipocrite (talk) 14:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Just so it's known, the individual who was unblocked, WP_Editor_2011, is going around warning everyone who has ever changed BC to BCE, or AD to CE, even when the edits were yeras ago. I don't know if this is considered acceptable or not because I am not as knowledgable as I ought to be about Misplaced Pages policies, but here is what I posted about it to the first admin whose page I found. http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Toddst1#WP_Editor_2011 J'onn J'onzz (talk) 05:19, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

See here. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 05:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC))

AN/I

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. - SudoGhost 18:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Please note that this ANI thread has been reopened, and you should consider participating in it. I briefly considered re-adding the post you made there, which you removed when you saw it was closed, but that isn't my place. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:42, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Azure

Please make sure that the 400+ links to the heraldic article that were broken by the move are repaired. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi. By moving the dab page to azure, that pretty much resolves the navigation issue. If there are further issues though, please feel free to drop me a note.

On a semi-related issue, I see you have been working on some merges of your own, and I hope that you check the links at azure(color) to make sure that all are correctly sent to shades of blue. (I see that you have already been working on the redirects.)- jc37 02:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

No, that creates the problem. The articles previously pointing to Azure were heraldry and flag articles that correctly pointed to the article about the heraldic tincture. Now, all of those links point to a disambiguation page, and the links therefore need to be adjusted accordingly. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern, but as all the different pages related to azure are clearly linked on the dab page, any editor coming there looking for the heraldry tincture will assuredly find the page they are looking for. It's common practice. And part of why we have dab pages.

However on the converse, the merges you are working on do notinvolve a dab page. So fixing links in some way would be appropriate in this case, I would think. - jc37 02:53, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Links should normally not point to disambiguation pages, and such linking is considered an error, so the links do need to be corrected. Additionally, you've introduced an extra step between the reader and access to the information. I myself have made no mergers yet; I have proposed one only. I made a move of a section and corrected the redirect links. If links have been hard coded into the linking articles, then a bot will be needed to correct those. This is what redirects were designed for, but some editors refuse to use them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Moving a fairly significant section to another page, in particular since it involves several other previous merges, would indeed be a merge.

As for the rest, that section is talking about future linking. That said, if you feel I am breaking the "honour code", so be it. I don't think that this is really worth debating. Especially since I have a feeling that more than a few of the links are not intended for the heraldry page. So with a mish mosh of varied links, it is all the more reason of having the dab page in place. If you still disagree, you are welcome to check out the links yourself. - jc37 03:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The Guideline is about creating links to disambiguation pages, which is what you did with your move. The Guideline explicitly states that links should point to relevant articles; that's why so many people have to spend time running bots to help repair disambiguation links. If you're not going to follow Guidelines, at least be straight up about it. And if you are going to create messes for other editors to clean up, and refuse to clean up after your own messes, then you really shouldn't be considering yourself a member of the Association of Structurist Wikipedians, for which one of the central tenets is structuring information both for readers and for future editors. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion... - jc37 05:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Note: I thought your note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation#Azure wasn't a bad idea. - jc37 05:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Layout of cladograms

I should have remembered to check the cladogram I changed at Bryophytes in the other class of browser (e.g. Safari) – I'm a Mac Firefox user which displays cladograms "properly". Reversing the other one makes them ok in both classes of browser, as far as I can tell (and there was no reason to have the two cladograms different ways round which could have misled naive readers). It seems that cladograms look best in the Safari/Chrome/Opera group of browsers if the branching increases downwards, i.e. generally if they are drawn with the earliest diverging groups at the top, whereas there's a tendency to draw them the other way up, with the latest diverging groups at the top, which, I agree, can look horrible in this group of browsers. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I've now updated the documentation at Template:Clade#Browser differences; I hope it's clear. So if you notice any cladograms which look particularly bad in Safari, you can draw the creator's attention to this section. I think I've often drawn cladograms the 'wrong' way round in the past. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Chase & Reveal classification articles

I've only recently come across a set of articles created by User:Nonenmac for taxa in the Chase & Reveal classification, e.g. Equisetopsida sensu lato, Magnoliidae sensu Chase & Reveal, Lycopodiidae, etc. I started trying to fix what I saw as some of their problems, which range from the trivial (use of zoology-style authorities), to slightly more misleading ones (wikilinks from Chase & Reveal names which lead to articles based on traditionally defined groups where the wikilinked name is not discusssed), to the most misleading (no comment on the degree to which this classification has been taken up or used by anyone else).

I noticed that you had commented on the talk pages of a couple of the articles, and thought I'd ask for your views before doing any more. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

In general, I don't think these taxa are noteworthy enough to have their own articles. They've been published in a single paper, and aren't being used by either the scientific community or textbook publishers. All of the groups have a "synonym" (for the clade) with a full and proper article. Having an article about another word for the same topic is counter to what an encyclopedia is supposed to do. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. So what can be done? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see the additional name discussed in the article for that group. A discussion at WP:PLANTS might be useful in creating a project guideline for merging content or allowing distinct articles when the topic is really just a name. We've been through a round of this sort of thing before back when I first joined, so putting something in writing with a rationale could solve the issue both now and in future. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:20, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I've now raised this at WT:PLANTS#Do taxon names deserve articles?. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:26, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Science lovers wanted!

Science lovers wanted!

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 Misplaced Pages 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) 20:01, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

-aceae

I changed the two dozen articles I added that to, per your observation. I've heard various pronunciations, and the OED would suggest that a disyllabic pronunciation is more formal, but if -/eisi:/ (full vowel!) is that dominant, we should probably just go with that.

You might want to review Taxonomic_rank#Terminations_of_names, which gives my attempt at pronunciation for all the regular endings (though I left out optional syllables). — kwami (talk) 02:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Any comment on the extra syllable? — kwami (talk) 04:52, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I've usually heard it pronounced as two syllables, and can't imagine how it could be heard as a single one. Perhaps I'm not understanding your question. However, there are a number of suspect pronunciations in the table you pointed to. I'll try to attend to those this weekend. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I meant as three syllables rather than two: /ˈ-eɪ.si.iː/ (what the OED would transcribe as /ˈ-eɪsɪiː/). — kwami (talk) 07:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense now. I've heard it both ways, and have said it both ways, but think that the two-syllable pronunciation is the one I hear (and use) more often. Mind you, I'm hearing it from academic botanists rather than gardners or botany club members, but that's as a result of my more frequent contact with academic circles. I couldn't say how prevalent the three-syllable pronunciation would be outside of academic circles. To my ears, the three-syallble pronunciation sounds more affected and Classically-conscious. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:37, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I have the same impression about it sounding a bit affected. — kwami (talk) 09:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Revert only when necessary

I noticed that you reverted my edit on azure. Please see Misplaced Pages:Revert only when necessary: reverting drives away editors. ENeville (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice, but an edit summary should accurately describe what happened in an edit. This is the case with my edit summaries. Thank you for finally opening a discussion about the issue, but it would have been better to discuss first. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:54, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The comment about "finally" opening discussion seems inaccurate and baiting. In any case, the negative effects of repeated reversions remain. I am concerned about a lack of appreciation for this point, but unfortunately also concerned whether I can say anything that would develop it. ENeville (talk) 15:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing

I am concerned by apparent disruptive editing that I believe I have witnessed on Azure and Talk:Azure:

1. Edit warring
2. Personal attack
3. Tendentious editing, placing one perspective beyond all others
4. Gaming the system, e.g. in the second paragraph of discussion (comment at 06:49, 21 April), purporting to respond to a point raised (distracting language as a dab page issue), but actually sidestepping it entirely
5. Avoiding consensus building by repeatedly dodging questions or requests for proposals toward compromise
6. Pettifogging
7. Rejecting community input
8. A general failure to "get the point"

ENeville (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe that your concerns are unfounded, as many of your points appear to me to be either fabrications or misinterpretations of policy. Some of your concerns apply to others involved in the discussion, but not to me. To help illustrate this, please clarify two of the above points for me: (1) What personal attack did you see in the discussion? (2) Pettifogging. What do you mean by this, and where is it discussed on the page you have linked to? I could not find it, and so am not certain what you mean.

The fact that I am actively engaged in the ongoing discussion, and am seeking to have my point understood, shows that I am not dodging questions. I do therefore believe that you are mistaken in many, if not all, of the points you have enumerated above. I await your reply on the two specific points I have raised in the previous paragraph, as I believe they will form the start of a clarifying discussion.

Do be aware that I intend to abide by consensus, but would appreciate it if people who disagree with my point of view could address the valid points that I have raised in counter argument, rather that simply dismissing them as if they had not been made. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

All of my enumerations are considered, and I stand by them. I don't see them as misapplied.

1. Personal attack: as I noted at the time, your statement of 22:04, 22 April, "I don't understand why you are so strongly opposed to the extra three letters," belittled my position.

2. Pettifogging: numerous subordinate technical concerns were repeatedly raised in objection while neglecting progress toward the main goal of finding an acceptable solution. I identified the issue by name in my comment of 00:15, 28 April, and I find that your statements in the discussion are replete with it. Not once, prior to my statement about disruptive editing, did you offer anything suggesting the possibility of a mutually acceptable solution.

As to dodged questions, mine inviting suggestion for more accessible language were repeatedly ignored, despite the copiousness of statements posted in subsequence.

I am concerned how productive expansion on my part will be with my observations viewed as "unfounded" or "fabrications" or "misinterpretations". Note that my concerns expressed above about reversion were apparently dismissed. Inquiry with someone else whose opinion you hold in higher esteem may be more illuminating, particularly for subtler points.

Your characterization that it was others who were dismissing your points underscores my concern about receptiveness. I suggest you reread the discussion from the beginning (as I have, a number of times now). To me it is apparent that it was yourself that was repeatedly unresponsive to points raised. Again, you would probably give more weight to the input of someone else on such matters, someone not involved in that discussion.

I bring this issue up, difficult though it may be, because a hospitable atmosphere is key to WP's long-term vitality. The number of WP English editors has fallen by about a third since 2007. ENeville (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

(1) "I don't understand" means that I don't understand. You may choose to feel whatever emotions you wish about my ability to understand, but my inability to understand does NOT constitute a personal attack. Please read WP:NPA to find out what constitutes a personal attack. Accusing people of making such attacks when they have not is inappropriate.

(2) The fact that you feel my concerns are not worth bothering over is not a problem on my part. If someone were to accuse you of raising "numerous subordinate technical concerns", would you consider that to belittle your position? Based on what you said in (1), do you think that it is OK to belittle other's opinons and points? And you have not identified the place where this is discussed on the disruptive editing page, as I requested.

If I'm replying to your comments, then I'm not ignoring them. Disagreeing with you is not the same as ignoring you or being unresponsive. To borrow a phrase from The Princess Bride, "I do not think those words mean what you think they mean." And I still don't understand how so many people can be so fussy over three extra letters in a disambiguation page description. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

1. The statement was "I don't understand why you are so strongly opposed to the extra three letters". I really doubt my opinion will count for any more than it did before, so I do suggest that you inquire with someone whose input you do value. You might also ask about the related statement "And I still don't understand how so many people can be so fussy over three extra letters in a disambiguation page description."

2.

a. I'm sorry, I did miss your question about pettifogging in relevant guidelines. Please see Misplaced Pages:Gaming the system, which relates to disruptive editing, and the meaning section which refers to pettifogging.

b. I appreciate that characterizing arguments as being "numerous subordinate technical concerns" is critical, but I submit that it doesn't carry the same personal effect as the quotes above. And no, I don't support belittling. Again, I think input from someone else would be the best way to discover new information here.

Regarding replying, a statement that follows another's but doesn't address their points is not responsive. When points are neglected repeatedly, it clearly becomes ignoring.

Re your frustration, people are crazy. But we're all one of 'em.  :) ENeville (talk) 13:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Same topic?

Aren't Fern ally and Pteridophyte actually about exactly the same group, the old Pteridophyta as per Sporne's 1966 book (referenced in Fern ally)? Shouldn't they be merged? I know that you usually keep an eye on articles in this area of botany. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:29, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

No. "Fern ally" excludes the traditional leafy ferns, while "pteridophyte" includes them. The term "fern allies" is also usually restricted to just the three traditional modern groups (lycophytes, horsetails, & whisk ferns), while "pteridophyte" includes all fossil organisms with a similar life cycle (rhyniophytes, calamitaleans, etc.). --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, right; I looked at the articles too quickly. The names for the vascular cryptograms have changed so much that I get confused. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

San Francisco Wiknic 2012

	San Francisco Wiknic at Golden Gate Park
	You are invited to the second Great American Wikinic taking place in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, on Saturday, June 23, 2012. We're still looking for input on planning activities, and thematic overtones. List your add yourself to the attendees list, and edit the picnic as you like. —Max Klein {chat} 18:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
	If you would not like to receive future messages about meetups, please remove your name from Misplaced Pages:Meetup/San Francisco/Invite.

Deciduous

This is equivalent with French caduc, not with French feuillu. The change in link is wrong. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:46, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello EncycloPetey, thanks for your correction. I can explain why bots modify in that way. fr:caduc is an disambiguation page, and en:Deciduous not, so bot ignore the link. But listing other interwikis, bots can find fr:feuillu (introduce around 2006 in some articles like es:Caducifolio which has en:Deciduous too) and thus modifiy a disambiguation page to a real article. --Sisyph (talk) 20:12, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this a serious flaw in the way that bots work. I wish people would check the edits made by their bots rather than letting faulty ones run all the time. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:11, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Re: Sphenophyllales

Seriously? If I remember correctly, I was the one who put that information there in the first place. It really doesn't seem to contribute anything valuable. It was a dead link. I also don't know where those other genera go. I did it to provide a more user-friendly access to the genera. This is the only way I could come up with to do it (unless you've got another idea). How about if I refer to it in the Sphenophyllum taxobox? You hardly ever see anything about the family anyways. All you ever really see is the order and the genera. Ushakaron (talk) 02:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• Due to conflicting sources, the families cannot be listed. An explanation is given below, but it is partially just an expression of bewilderment.
  I don't know if there is only the one family. I don't know what genera belong to it either. I've looked and looked. There doesn't seem do be a plain and simple document of the taxonomy anywhere. One person says one thing. Another person says something else. All I know is that Sphenophyllaceae is a valid family. I'm assuming Sphenophyllum is a member of that family because that would only make sense. I don't know what other genera are part of that family. I know there are other genera in Sphenophyllales, but I don't know which families they belong to. Encyclopedia Britannica has a page on Sphenophyllales. "2 families: Sphenophyllaceae and Cheirostrobaceae." Zipcodezoo makes no mention of Sphenophyllales, and instead uses Bowmanitales. On their page, they list Cheirostrobaceae along with Eviostachyaceae and Bowmanitaceae as families, but not Sphenophyllaceae. Taxinomicon is the same way. Those are really the only other places I can find on Google that even mention Cheirostrobaceae. I can't find a list of genera that belong to any of the families. Bowmanitales is definitely synonymous with Sphenophyllales, but I'm not sure if that guarantees Bowmanitaceae is synonymous with Sphenophyllaceae (not that I can find a list of genera for either of them). Then there's Cheirostrobaceae which almost certainly contains the genus Cheirostrobus, but who knows what else? Then Eviostachyaceae. I can't find much on Google. Perhaps it's part of a different classification system? I can find places that list some genera for Sphenophyllaceae, but they also place the family in Equisetales, so I know it's a different classification system. AAARRGGHHHH!!!! I have no idea! What you're asking is impossible given what I have to work with. I can find information about some species in the genera. That's it. The genera must be listed somewhere. Otherwise the users won't be able to access them, and what's the point of an encyclopedia that users can't use. If you have any information on this subject please share it. I'd love to know it. I am at a dead end. Without those missing links, the way I changed the page is the only way to present the information. The listing of the family there may have been the only information we had, but it was basically useless information. A dead end. I have removed it and replaced it with something that can be explored further.
  Ushakaron (talk) 14:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: Hamatophyton verticillatum

It's the only species I know of at the moment. I don't know if it's the only member of its genus. With the fossil stuff, the taxonomy is such a mess. One can never be sure. The source did refer to the genus by itself, but made no mention of other species. I figured it's better to create the genus page for now until more information is available.
I must say, you are really fast with checking this stuff. Ushakaron (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Fossil Horsetails

I have obtained a copy of the book I have been referencing. There is good info about species in the other genera I listed on Sphenophyllales. Like Hamatophyton, it only talks about one species. Google search only pulled up Hamatophyton verticillatum, but with fossils, you can't be sure that means there aren't other members of the genus. I guess I'm just giving you a head's up about what's going on so you don't have to wonder. If you think there is a better way to proceed, let me know.
Also, I hope I didn't seem like I was b*tching at you before. I just tend to be blunt.
Goodnight to you, or if you're on the other side of the world, good morning. Whatever. haha Ushakaron (talk) 02:59, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: Ginkgoales

It was a redirect because some wise guy assumed there was only one family. There are more families. I can source them. Since there is more than one family, it should not be a redirect page. I've worked with the auto taxoboxes before. They're really pretty simple once you get it. I just haven't done them for a while, although I can't find anything I'm doing wrong. Ushakaron (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• I've created the templates for the other families, but they won't show up as children. They're listed as children in the category here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Category:Immediate_children/Ginkgoales

They just won't show up in the taxobox. It's absolutely maddening. I was hoping somebody could find where my error was. I'm just going to use a normal taxobox for the moment.Ushakaron (talk) 22:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• • Not quite sure what you mean. I went and found the Ginkgoaceae template and accessed the Ginkgoales template from there. It had it so when you clicked on Ginkgoales, it would take you to Ginkgoaceae. I might have changed that first. Then, I went and added the children. If you go to the Ginkgoales page, I have created a traditional taxobox with the other families. We'll see what happens. Perhaps you're right about giving the server some time.Ushakaron (talk) 22:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

What I mean is: if you create the children first, and then edit the parent template, the server will seek out children templates immediately. If you do not edit the parent after creating the children, then there will be a server lag of an hour (or even a day) before the parent template is checked again by the server and children are recognized. Any template that calls on other templates will not immeditely register a change in those other templates unless it is edited. Otherwise, there is a delay in the response from the software. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting. I will keep that in mind. Thanks. Also, about the Karkeniaceae page, I created that just to see if creating a page would get it to be recognized is a child of Ginkgoales. Ginkgoales does have some text (one sentence), but as I read my book more, I will get more information. Soon, all the different families will have some information posted. (I am aware that articles need text. I was just in a hurry and figured nobody would be looking at it anyways yet)Ushakaron (talk) 00:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

The Plant List and taxoboxes

Thank you for alerting me to the unreliability of The Plant List. I admit that i did have my suspicions about it. Where are the conventions for what to put in the taxobox? 66.91.100.63 (talk) 09:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The taxobox conventions are not all spelled out in any one place, but we don't list Embryophyte as a taxon. The major groups that have traditionally been treated as divisions (e.g., Lycopodiophyta, Pinophyta) are the highest rank usually included below the rank of Plantae, and for angiosperms that equates to "angiosperms". Until the scientific community reaches a clear consensus otherwise, that's unlikely to change. Otherwise, we use APG III for angiosperms, Smith for monilophytes, and Goffinet for mosses. Some groups have highly unstable classifications (e.g. liverworts) and so no set classification is yet in use. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Dipterocarpus costatus

Hello EncycoPetey, yes I am new to editing Misplaced Pages, though I have worked as an academic archaeobotanist for many years. So I was a little surprised at the guilty until proven innocent "Copyright Violation" notice. Why? 3 reasons:

1 I comprehensively referenced all material, just as in my academic work, published by publishing institutions, published in monographs and academic journals;

2 yes I used many of the same phrases as one of the original sources, they are botanical descriptors, can you tell me why botanical descriptors should be altered to please Misplaced Pages. It is an encyclopaedia, "no original research", so if including botanical and ecological descriptors relying on rigourously applied criteria, how do I not use the same terms as source material;

3. it is an academic website I was quoting from, not a commercial site, they themselves acknowledge that they are freesource and built on the research of others, they cite the academic literature that they derived their material from, therefore whose copyright am I violating? I draw your attention to http://www.biotik.org/res_technical.html

So, guilty until proven innocent, I have contacted Dr Edelin, project coordinator, to clarify the situation. I doubt his main work tool is web-trawling bots and that he is busy with other work, how long before you make an un-investigated deletion of my contribution? Brunswicknic (talk) 12:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Replied at the duplicate of this posting on Talk:Dipterocarpus costatus. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:26, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

The discussion at Talk:Coat of arms of the Holy See#Dispute might interest you. Esoglou (talk) 09:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Would you please intervene in this discussion and tell me whether I am wrong in distinguishing a coat of arms from an emblem. Esoglou (talk) 20:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but Italian and episcopal heraldry / insignia are outside the scope of my resources and personal knowledge. I did have a look when you first contacted me, but could find nothing helpful. I'd like to have helped, but just don't have either books or knowledge to assist in this instance. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Tree

There has been some controversy over at the article Tree. I thought the article that existed before August 1st was not very good and completely rewrote it in my userspace. Another editor took exception to my new version which he describes as rubbish, repeatedly stating that 2/3 of it was faulty. Would you be able, as a member of WikiProject Plants, to look over the article, point out errors I have made and make suggestions? I took a view that anyone who looked up "Tree" in wikipedia did not want anything too technical. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Division or phylum?

Yes, I should have done what you did at Moss and restored the original. One or two editors seem to have a bit of a campaign to replace "division" by "phylum". Peter coxhead (talk) 09:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Velum disambiguation

Hello EncycloPetey, I saw that you had changed the links for velum at Isoëtes and Isoetales back to the disambiguation page. Since we aren't supposed to have links to disambiguation pages (WP:INTDAB), and there is no article for that use of velum, and the articles had a descriptor of "a thin, transparent covering" I thought it was best to unlink them. I suppose the best approach would be to write an article or section on that use of velum and link to it; but I haven't the background to do that. What do you think we should do? Thanks. SchreiberBike (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

We should have at least a short description on the disambiguation page and either an article linked or else a section of another article. The velum is simply any thin, transparent covering, it is a specific morphological feature of quillworts, just as petals are for flowering plants. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

But disambiguation pages aren't the place for descriptions. Disambiguation pages "are designed to help a reader find Misplaced Pages articles on different topics that could be referenced by the same search term" (MOS:DAB). I think the descriptor of "a thin, transparent covering" for velum meets the reader's need. Thanks. SchreiberBike (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The explanation does not cover the topic. An article, or part of article will need to be created. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. For now shall we change them to the eventual article or redirect name with red links for Velum (Isoëtes) or perhaps Velum (quillworts)? Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 20:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The name Velum (botany) would be better, as there are extinct relatives that possessed the same structure. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the changes. You can see where the red link is used by this link. Thanks. SchreiberBike (talk) 02:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I've "reported" you

Here
--89.79.88.109 (talk) 11:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

In case it's not clear from this cryptic note, the link is to an ANI thread. Please respond there the next time you're online. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• Just weighing in after seeing the ANI thread, I strongly recommend responding to it as soon as possible. The consensus among participants thus far is that there are some legitemate concerns regarding your use of the protect button in content disputes, specifically as to whether or not such actions are in compliance with WP:INVOLVED, and that this is not an isolated incident. Kurtis (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

  I find it odd that several people have asserted that I was "involved" in this case, without actually providing any explanation or evidence as to why they think that. Is this what Misplaced Pages has become? --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Several people have explained why they believe you are "involved"; please re-read the ANI thread, and the wording of WP:ADMIN. You are not enforcing WP:MOS, you are enforcing your interpretation of WP:MOS, with which it is possible to disagree in good faith. In other words, this is a content dispute. You are enforcing your interpretation by use of page protection, a tool unavailable to non-admins. You have previously used blocks to enforce your interpretation. Do I understand correctly you do not plan to alter your behavior? In the previous ANI thread, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but it appears that this is a pattern of behavior, and that you are unwilling to stop. I am beginning to assemble diffs for an ArbCom request for your desysop, but there is no sense in doing that if you plan to listen to the feedback of everyone at ANI. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

No, a couple of people have asserted that I was "involved". No one has explained why they think so, and one person has categorically stated that I was not involved. Please do not tell me what I am doing, as that is unhelpful. Tell me rather why, but please do so in the discussion forum set aside for this topic. Splitting this discussion across multiple pages will make it harder both for myself and for others to follow and respond. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

You are involved in a content dispute on that page, as you were applying the Manual of Style to the article in a disagreement with another editor. Even if your interpretation of the MoS was completely agreed upon by the community, this is not "a purely administrative role", it is the role of an editor. Therefore when you use administrative tools in situations that you have also edited as an editor, this makes you involved. You have a disagreement with another editor about the specific content. This dispute between you and that other editor was not a "purely administrative role", applying the Manual of Style to an article is not an "administrative role" in any way, interpreting the guideline and applying it to an article is purely editorial. It wasn't as an administrator that these edits were made, and in this editorial dispute between two editors, you used administrative tools to gain the advantage in a content dispute, and this isn't the first time this has happened. That makes you an involved administrator. - SudoGhost 05:49, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

EncycloPetey, I am afraid your actions here and your responses so far are deeply unsatisfactory. I am filing an Arbcom request in this matter now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:26, 29 August 2012 (UTC)