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I checked MOS: Capitalize names of regions if they have attained proper-name status Starting sentences with "there" and ending with prepositions I find to be weak or incorrect; how did the meaning change?66.61.92.158 (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Where are you seeing the MOS entry about regions? I'm using MOS:COMPASS "Points of the compass (north, southwest, etc.), and their derived forms (northern etc.) are not generally capitalized: nine miles south of Oxford, a northern road. They are capitalized only when they form part of a proper name, such as Great North Road." The northern hemisphere is not a proper name, just a description, no more valid than the southeastern hemisphere (though easier to deal with when the earth rotates).

Botanical terminology is not something for the uninitiated to meddle with, so please stay away from technical plant descriptions unless you've put in at least a few months of intensive study of the matter and have a stack of reference books to hand. For example, Stearn's Botanical Latin states that the English word "serrate" means "saw-edges with sharp teeth pointing forwards". By changing that to "serrated" you lost specificity, which is a component of meaning, as if you'd changed "dachshund" to "dog".

Now, you might find starting sentences with "there" and ending with prepositions to be "weak or incorrect", but that just isn't so, as Winston Churchill famously fumed. You changed "there is not general agreement as to how many genera it should be divided into" into "no general agreement exists as to how many genera into which it should be divided". The new version is clumsy, the old one quite acceptable (though I'd change "not" to "no").

Your change is unnecessary, and makes more work for those of us who struggle to keep up with our watch lists. :(

It is not an improvement to change "there is a daffodil" into "a daffodil exists"; the former is more natural, the latter stilted. A more natural style is easier to read, though, of course, there are limits, and written English is different from spoken English.

Can you parse "as to how many genera into which it should be divided"? "How many genera" is a number, it doesn't naturally divide into the parts "how many" and "genera" so that you can refer to just the "genera" part. I'd accept "there is no general agreement about the number of genera into which it should be divided" because it doesn't cause such a brain-hiccup when just the "genera" part is the referent of the later part of the sentence. "as to how many … into which" is just too complex a construction of the little words that make up many idioms, so too much effort is required for the reader to understand it.

Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Antillean Piculet

I've been reading articles about woodpeckers, and am now reading the article about the Antillean Piculet. I've come across something that I find puzzling. It is in the info box at the right. There is a drawing of the head, wing tip and tail feathers of the Antillean Piculet, and the caption says, "latter two from above". Does that just mean that the latter two of the three drawings are from the Antillean Piculet? Then what about the first drawing, of the head? Or do you think perhaps there used to be a photo of this bird and that it somehow got deleted? CorinneSD (talk) 22:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it means that the drawings are of that part of the bird as seen from above, and you could clarify the caption accordingly. The first image, of the head, is a contrast because it is seen from the side. Some clarification like that is needed particularly for the tail because the downy feathers at the base look more like the feathers that many birds have underneath near their tails, but the small feathers above the tail apparently aren't as neat in this species as in some other birds. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh...thank you. I had not even thought of that, "as seen from above". I'll fix that. I'm surprised there isn't a photo since the bird is still living. In fact, I read in the article on Woodpeckers, in the first paragraph in the section Woodpecker#Distribution, habitat and movements, it is the only member of its group (genus?), so it is special among woodpeckers. CorinneSD (talk) 23:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if you'd want to get into this, but on one occasion I found a photo in Flickr and asked the uploader if they would be willing to donate it to commons.wikipedia.org. It might not work as well with a photo of a rare bird as it did with the not-so-rare fruit that I was asking about … Some photographers are happy to donate a low-resolution image which is then a little bit of advertising for them. Yes, woodpeckers are wonderful; Picoides pubescens have been making quite a racket recently where I am. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I saw a number of photos on Wikimedia Commons that were originally on Flickr. I don't think I can manage that kind of asking for permission and then transferring to Commons. May I ask you something? What is an easy way to get to all the photos in Commons? I've gotten to them in only two ways, both indirectly: through a link in the article about Wikimedia Commons to Featured and Quality photos, and through a photo that appears in an article. Isn't there a more direct way to get to Commons photos?

I had to look to see what Picoides pubescens was, and it got me to the article on Downy woodpecker, which I recognized right away because they are around here, too. I read in Downy woodpecker#Taxonomy that the Downy and Hairy woodpeckers, while looking very similar, are unrelated and from different genera, and are "a spectacular example of convergent evolution". At the bottom of the article on downy woodpeckers are some nice photos and a video with sound of a d. w. eating suet. CorinneSD (talk) 23:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Cool (though I can't play it because my java settings lock it out, which is slightly annoying but I don't think I'll risk changing the settings). What they are doing around here could perhaps be described as yodelling. The Hairy Woodpecker gave me quite a shock when I first saw one, just like a downy on steroids. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:45, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• The Lazarus taxon. , something for you two? Hafspajen (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Gee willikers, there are Lazarus cultivars, such as the Montreal Melon! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:45, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Gosh, Montreal Melon?Hafspajen (talk) 07:24, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I like this Monito del Monte (from Lazarus taxon article). CorinneSD (talk) 02:18, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• How cute... Hafspajen (talk) 09:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Very cute! (As one would expect for one of my relatives.)

I've been to Garden of the Gods, and it is quite a place, rather full of people, but really worth experiencing.

The Montreal Melon story is neat and different; it seems that W. Atlee Burpee bought a melon in St Anne's market and grew the seeds from it and selected a true-breeding lineage which he then sold seeds from. People could do more of that today, and the earlier step of selling good fruit that aren't necessarily all identical to one another. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it (The Melon). Hafspajen (talk) 12:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I hope that isn't a Monty Python reference. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

What's "Garden of the Gods"? CorinneSD (talk) 15:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The photo above that Hafspajen added, here. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. It doesn't look like a garden. CorinneSD (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• OH; it's ...symbolic talk ...Symbol, an object that represents, stands for, or suggests an idea, belief, action, or material entity. This little thing is eating that stic. Hafspajen (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I know that whoever named that place in Colorado with the rocks must have thought it looked liked a large garden and possibly fit for gods. I'm just saying that to me, it doesn't look much like a garden. I don't think it's symbolic. I think it was a matter of scale, that it looked like an outsized garden. Regarding the little mammal, I looked closely at it and it doesn't look like it is eating anything. CorinneSD (talk) 17:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

But maybe it was about to eat that little green bamboo shoot. CorinneSD (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Might have thought about this picture above, when naming it. Somehow. Hafspajen (talk) 17:09, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks sleepy. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:27, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Gazing... Hafspajen (talk) 19:56, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Not a bulldog

	A no Motive Barnstar
	No message... stop... a dog for you ...stop...hope you will like it...stop... Hafspajen (talk) 19:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! A lovely little animal! Which brings up that eternal question, how do human children learn what is a dog? It seems a nearly impossible task. The average human child must be quite brilliant. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 10:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WELL, YOU GOT A DOG, AND START TALKIG TO IT. You say, hello, how are you. The dog sniffs, baks and say woff. Than you try to raise him on the back legs, the dog makes it clear that he prefers to stand on all four legs... You put a ball in the dogs paw, and tell him to carry it.. The dog will take in the mouth and chew it... sooner or later you will se the difference between your demands and the demands of this earnest dog. Simple experiments like this will show the difference for you... Hafspajen (talk) 13:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Barley

I noticed in the article Barley that an editor changed the spelling of "Celiac disease" to "Coeliac disease" with an edit summary saying changed to "international spelling" of the disease. Well, U.S. American spelling is "Celiac disease", so "Coeliac disease" looks strange. Can both be used there? CorinneSD (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Corinne, a quite good reason for using the coeliac spelling would be that the World Health Organization uses it in their International Classification of Diseases, so it seems that people are standardizing wikipedia to that convention. Since it is linked from barley, one usually wouldn't put both spellings on the barley page, and the standardized spelling would be preferred unless Barley is definitely flagged as using US spelling as per WP:ENGVAR (which it isn't). Coeliac shouldn't be capitalized as it now is, though. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:18, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Tea

If you have time, could you look at the latest edits to Tea? The way it is left, now, sounds a bit odd. CorinneSD (talk) 15:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

That is about sugar not tea. It is not the negative effects of the tea, but the sugar. Hafspajen (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

The two recent additions this and this would, I think, also fail WP:MEDRS. It's hard to fight that sort of thing, though. Mostly, people keep adding stuff until someone chops it all out. The studies cited are primary literature in medicine, but in that domain it is better to use meta-studies, like this one. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:31, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Tea roses

• Don't you think that this version of the article was better? Hafspajen (talk) 19:17, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

? Rose-hip tea can be very nice. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Weird that no mention of garden rose in article. Hafspajen (talk) 23:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Clickable at the end of the first paragraph and under Ornamental plants? Rainbow rose is no longer there. I don't think there is anywhere that discusses the cultivars used for greenhouse roses. Looking for miniature roses under Garden roses seems unlikely for a reader, though it does come up near the top of a search. I think we need a redirect for mini rose, which is a commonly used expression. Generally, there seems to be a huge amount of material that could be added. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:24, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, Sminthopsis!Hafspajen (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

HM: Hafspajen (talk) 23:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Nearly half! Gosh! And I went to a Gesneriad show today. Probably am lucky to be alive. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

• You are warned. Next time use bodyguards. Hafspajen (talk) 23:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Prickly roses, perhaps. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, baby guinea pigs squeezing through a bottomless cup, a portal from another dimension? Cute, whatever their situation! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

• ThisisallIgot
• 
• 
• 'Perle d'Or' is a yellow Cecile B
• Brunner pouter (aka Cecil, nearly the right colour but whiter than Cécile).
  Here Cecil does his best to demonstrate the high-centred form of a Hybrid Tea rose.
• This maybe? ->It was also called buttonhole rose
• 
• 
• 

Unless no spiders are involved... Hafspajen (talk) 15:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Good to continue this under the "Tea" heading, since there isn't a "Multiflora" heading available. 'Perle d'Or', lovely! I don't know what those "Improved Cecil Brunner" are, perhaps a seedling, very hot pink compared to Cecil/Cécile him/herself. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Cecile Brunner is a very pale pink, with small small flowers. But we have no pictures...something like this Hafspajen (talk) 15:49, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and slightly scented, and likely to be picked at the bud stage by people passing by. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:59, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

What a pity the boutonniere photo doesn't state what the cultivar is. It certainly looks like CB. Might be a modern miniature, though. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes it cpould be. Before the miniatures times they were the nr 1 buttonhole roses. Hafspajen (talk) 16:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I was trying to track down a good citation for "sweetheart rose" meaning something other than CB or 'Orange Sweetheart'. For a while around here, miniature rose breeders were selling "sweetheart size" plants that were, it seemed, seedlings that turned out to be bigger than they wanted for the miniatures. Perhaps that usage has either died out or is on the way out. It is used for another cultivar. Perhaps that isn't ready to be a disambiguation page. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Cécile Brunner (1880 — Ducher, France) - List of rose cultivars named after people Hafspajen (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Willow

I just started reading the article Willow. I found something that wasn't quite right grammatically and fixed it, but I wonder if you would mind checking the edit to make sure it is right. CorinneSD (talk) 00:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not quite clear what resembles and what remains for half the summer. CorinneSD (talk) 00:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to improve that, and added an illustration (but there's another sentence that beats me and would require some research to fix). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your work, but I still think this sentence contains some ambiguity:

"The leaf petioles are short, the stipules often very conspicuous, resembling tiny, round leaves, and sometimes remaining for half the summer."

The way it is worded now, it is not 100% clear what sometimes remains for half the summer. I suppose it is just the stipules, but it's not completely clear. I propose a change to the construction of the sentence to something like this:

"The leaf petioles are short, and the stipules are often very conspicuous, resembling tiny, round leaves and sometimes remaining for half the summer."

I think adding and to create two complete clauses and removing the comma after leaves clears up the ambiguity. If I am not correct in thinking it is the stipules that sometimes remain for half the summer, the sentence can be revised so that it expresses the reality correctly. CorinneSD (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that would be much better. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding that other sentence about which you had questions, I found a website with quite a lot of detailed information about the willow. It is www.mobot.org. It is the Missouri Botanical Garden's website. I clicked on "Plant Science" and then searched for willow, Salicaceae, and found a lot of information. It is so technical that I barely understand it, but you probably would. You might find the answer to your question there. CorinneSD (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll have a look at that some time. APG is a great work, but doesn't get into as much detail about each genus, and there are now quite a few genera in Salicaceae, not just Populus and Salix as we botanists of more than a couple of years' experience remember it (wasn't Salicaceae in Violales just a while ago, but now it's in Malpighiales?? I'm not even sure.) That material about dissecting the buds is unusual. It's also very confusing as written and might require considerably more verbiage to make sense. A source that apparently gets into some detail about this (it talks about the prophyll structure of the bud) is George Argus's The Genus Salix (Salicaceae) in the Southeastern United States. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't know much about botany, but I am very interested in plants and trees, so I would read anything until it gets too technical and I begin not to understand it. I went to that website and read the one page that was visible. It said to read more I could download it for $29.99 or click on "Read more". Then I saw a window that said, " think you have access to this library? Click..." Then I saw it was JSTOR, and I had just today seen at the top of WP pages that there are free accounts available to several on-line libraries including Oxford, Questia, and JSTOR. It said those accounts are for editors who regularly add content or verify information in articles. Are those accounts rare and reserved, or could someone like me who likes to read new things and maybe occasionally check for new information get one? CorinneSD (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Is there any way I could get free on-line access to Oxford English Dictionary on-line? I am very interested in words, their definitions and etymology, and I would love to be able to look at OED, but right now can't afford a subscription. CorinneSD (talk) 19:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you should definitely apply for one of those wikipedia accounts, you are definitely an experienced editor who checks content and verifies information! Some of us who also do that are affiliated with university libraries, so we don't need the free accounts.

About the OED, I don't know of any free subscriptions to that. I don't have it myself, though one of the university departments here has bought a subscription for their members (which I guess must mean that it's expensive).

That problem of thinking that you don't have access to something that you actually do have access to has intrigued me lately since a friend who works with graduate students in engineering told me that she's been appalled by how often they pay money for an article that they can get for free from the university library. There, the problem is apparently that the library provides two search methods, "article search" and the old-fashioned "journal locator". Youngish people who expect search engines to do everything for them rely on the article search. It doesn't show everything, not even close! So even when they have a complete citation with journal name, volume, and page numbers, these hapless students are paying on the order of $40 per article because they think the library doesn't have it. (There must be some such people who don't go on to graduate school because they can't afford the article fees!) Those engineering students still haven't been introduced to what else is in the library on paper ...

Here in Canada, university libraries are open to the public, so one can go and look at material on paper for free. That is true also of some US land-grant universities, and perhaps some that were originally privately funded. Is it possible that there could be such an institution near you? A charming librarian may be waiting to welcome you, I find that they can be delighted to meet someone who takes an interest in the material that they care for. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response -- I've been busy with other things. Thank you so much for all your suggestions and your encouragement to apply for a free account to the on-line libraries. I applied to two. I saw that many other applicants to the science libraries had a background in science, medicine, or math. Oh, well. I'll just wait and see. CorinneSD (talk) 22:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I hope you get one! By the way, you said that when you are reading scientific articles you stop at the point where you don't understand: if you have access to the whole thing a good rule of thumb is to skip the parts that are usually the least readable: the abstract, the materials and methods section, and the results section. Abstracts are constrained, often to just 250 words, so big words and elision are effectively encouraged. The most comprehensible parts are often the introduction and the conclusions/discussion. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 10:20, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. In the WP articles I've read on science (for example, I've edited quite a few articles on the elements -- I just finished Nickel) -- minerals, mining, and plants, I can usually follow most of the article. It's the chemistry parts that I skip. CorinneSD (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Nice job. (Thank you particularly for changing "This is believed due to" to "This is believed to be due to".) What a wonderful tidbit: "Nickel was voted Allergen of the Year in 2008 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society". Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:04, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I also liked reading that at one point a few years ago the U.S. nickel was worth more for its nickel and copper than its face value of 5 cents, so people started melting them down. (Then the price of nickel dropped and it went below 5 cents.) If you have nothing to do ;) , and you feel like doing a little more for this article, you can look at a series of questions I posted at User talk:Vsmith#Nickel yesterday regarding some unclear sentences. (I've been asking VSmith my questions when I edit the articles about the elements, minerals, and mining.) You could also review the many recent edits to Metalloid. (See the note I posted at User talk:Rothorpe#Metalloid.) I had gone through the article on Metalloid in detail a few weeks ago, and now an editor has made so many changes that I can't figure out if they're an improvement or not, and I'd appreciate your opinion (not that I feel proprietary about my edits; it's just that I thought I had left the article in good shape). CorinneSD (talk) 16:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Re Metalloid, because of one incident of vandalism, those edits I was speaking of are about two to three edits back. They're by Parkly Taxel (or something like that). CorinneSD (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I forget how to bring the discussion back to the left margin. CorinneSD (talk) 16:53, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I think I'll skip the metallurgy discussion, thanks all the same. Presumably, these people had the page on their watch lists, so your touching it ignited their editing enthusiasm. I wonder what you are using to edit, I've turned off various fancy tools so often that I'm not sure what's available any more. In the basic editor that works with the raw code, one just moves back to the left margin by not typing any colons at the start of a paragraph. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

That's O.K. I have only checked "WikEd" in the Editing section after clicking on the Gadgets tab in Preferences. I really like it because it gives more editing tools (although I don't know what all of them are) but especially because, in Edit Mode, the text stands out because links and references are highlighted in lavender-gray, tags and notes to editors in salmon (pinkish-orange), and captions in lime green. It makes it very easy to focus on just the text. I know I could just not type colons, but I knew there was a way to draw a squarish line to bring the discussion back to the left margin. I found it just now on the Talk page of the Hinduism article. It is {{outdent}}or {{od}}. In the WP guide to editing, it also gives an option to add a number after a pipe, I guess the number of indents, but who counts that? {{outdent|4}} I'm glad I found that. I could never remember it. CorinneSD (talk) 23:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Quinoa

Do you feel like reviewing the latest edits to Quinoa by an IP editor? I'm not sure they're an improvement. For one, changing "though" to "and" is wrong, but I don't know about the botanical information. CorinneSD (talk) 14:22, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. If only copyeditors were people who first learned to write for meaning and then to copyedit. The good ones are worth more than their weight in gold. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

"there is no such thing as a pomegranate aril"

= your laconic "summary" when you changed the text of the pic in the Pomegranate article the first time. Since I've just come across a PhD thesis "Modified Atmosphere Packaging of pomegranate arils", I wonder what the guy was writing about. So, would you please answer Kembangraps' unanswered question "Aril = sarcotesta ?" ? It's been there since Jan. 31, 2013, and please also have a look at the same pic on the Aril page and the text of the article. Thank you. --Marschner (talk) 16:35, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I hadn't seen that page or the question, but have responded now. It's an interesting phenomenon, 2,260 in scholar.google.com for pomegranate together with aril. The papers seem to all be about processing the fruit, so it seems that people working in that area have latched onto that term. Botanists long ago agreed that it isn't an aril. A potential market niche: selling pomegranate products to botanists who previously weren't interesting in buying a package filled with non-existent product. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:04, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Since in a number of recent books, e.g. S. Hiwale, The Pomegranate ,2009 or Heber and Schulman, Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine, 2006, etc.etc.. the pomegranates still have their non-existent arils - also, by the way, according to the German WP article (which was questioned by a lone doubter in 2009, whose remark has gone unnoticed ), you really ought to supplement the article with an explanatory paragraph. I don’t think your “there isn’t such a thing as an pg. aril”, hidden away somewhere in the history of the revisions, is sufficient, and why should anybody suddenly feel the urge to read an article on Sarcotesta? Food science people believe in pg. arils, and even though this may be fallacious superstition, they have plenty of followers. --Marschner (talk) 18:17, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I've added the statement there as well, and checked the pomegranate pages in a few languages (de, fr, da, sv, la, simple, ca, pt, eo). The Spanish and Aragonés, were already correct. I'll ask some friends to check some more languages. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:59, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Swamp

What do you think of the latest edit to Swamp, in which an editor changed "scientific" to "theoretical-physics"? CorinneSD (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with it. It is a theoretical-physics concept. One relative of mine is professor in theoretical-physics, and this is exactly what it is, a theoretical-physics concept. Hafspajen (talk) 14:18, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's part of String theory. Rather like most of my clothes... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, you're right. I see now. I had only looked at the edit in Revision History and thought it had nothing to do with swamp (as in marsh, etc.). Now that I look at it in the article, I see that it is a re-direct to another article in which "swamp" is used in an entirely different sense. This should teach me not to look at an edit only in the revision history. Sorry to bother you. Physicists use some pretty strange words.... CorinneSD (talk) 14:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

PCW's clothes and "could be true if gravity were not an issue", mind-boggling. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Those are beautiful photos! Where is that "could be true" line from? CorinneSD (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, aren't they. Swampland (physics), middle of the first sentence. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh. Thank you. I hadn't bothered to read anything of that article. I just read the first paragraph. Did you see the next sentence? It ends, "the string theory landscape of vacua is vast". That's quite a phrase. I clicked on "vacua" -- it goes to false vacuum -- and tried to read the first paragraph. It looks like English, but I couldn't understand a thing. CorinneSD (talk) 22:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, I would't bother about trying to understand what a theoretical physicist thinks. It can be so complicated that they don't understand each other either somtimes. But they are indeed very refreshingly eccentric and creative. List of theoretical physicists. Hafspajen (talk) 23:59, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

;-) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:32, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Ambery

I saw an edit to the article on Sandalwood. While looking at it I skimmed the section on Sandalwood#Fragrance. In the first paragraph of that section I noticed a term, "floral-ambery". Since I didn't know what that was, I searched for a WP article about it. There is no article specifically about "ambery", but I found it in an article on Fragrance wheel. You might like to read the comment I just posted on the Talk page of that article. Perhaps you can help clarify the term. CorinneSD (talk) 16:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Corinne, you are a blessing for the Misplaced Pages. Hafspajen (talk) 16:36, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I just found some additional information, but I don't know what to do with it. (See the talk page of Fragrance wheel).

Yes, you are. I've just added some redirects for Amber scent and Ambery, so linking to them might the way to go. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I added a note and a question at the talk page of Fragrance wheel (by the way, how to I make a link right to the talk page of the article?). Regarding this note from you, I guess I don't know what you mean when you say you added some redirects for.... What are redirects, and where are they? CorinneSD (talk) 17:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

What a beautiful glass bottle! (and I see the hearts). You're so nice. It kind of reminds me of the photo of blue amber I just saw in the article on Amber. I had never even heard of blue amber! CorinneSD (talk) 17:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Lovely. Hafspajen (talk) 17:28, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, I'd never heard of blue amber either, or fluorescent amber. What a pity several species of Hymenaea are extinct, or I and no doubt many other people would be wanting to grow their seeds.

About the redirects, I created two pages, one of which is Ambery, so if you click on that link here you'll end up at the section of the Amber page. Now if you go up to the top of the Amber page, you'll see "(Redirected from Ambery)" and you can click on Ambery in that message. This time it will take you to the redirect page that has the coding in it, but the actual coding doesn't show until you go into edit mode. You should now see the actual #redirect followed by where it goes, the "target". So if you enter ] on a page such as sandalwood it will transfer when someone clicks there. I hope this makes sense; as has been mentioned here before, I prefer to directly edit page code, so perhaps you are using an editing method that doesn't normally show the page code. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

(Hafspajen: I'm wondering which of CorinneSD's companions shown is you and which is me. That looks a bit like User:Gareth Griffith-Jones on Corinne's left.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You made me blush, I am confused. Hafspajen (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Sminthopsis, thank you for the explanation about the redirect, but I still don't understand why it was necessary to create that "page" called "Ambery". I don't understand why a link directly to that section of the Amber article is not sufficient for the mention of both "amber" and "ambery" in the Sandalwood and Fragrance wheel articles. CorinneSD (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

About the redirects called Ambery and Amber scent: Direct links could always be used in the articles. The function would be to help people searching for a phrase they don't understand, and also for people while they write material, to help them easily find something suitable to link to. Previously when one typed "amber scent" in the search box, three suggested pages would appear, Pino Silvestre, Al-Ali (tribe), and Ronan Keating, none of which would be of much help to someone who just wants to know what an amber scent is. I had thought those terms were subjective jargon that didn't have a real-world meaning. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

String theory image

On another topic, did you see today's featured article? It's about things to do with string theory. I wanted to ask you something about that article. There is an illustration a little ways down from the beginning. It's in Mirror symmetry (string theory)#Applications. The caption says, "Circles of Apollonius". In both the caption and the description that appears under the picture when you click on the picture, it says that there are colored circles around the black circles. On my screen, I don't see any colors. I see the black circles and then circles of just black lines. Is it just my computer? Do you see the colors? CorinneSD (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yellow, pink blue and green circles, yes. Hafspajen (talk) 17:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That's weird. When I clicked on the link to the article in the caption, in that article I could see the colors in all the illustrations. Then I went back to the featured article. I thought perhaps it was because I had set the zoom to 125% (to make articles easier to read), so I re-set the zoom to 100%. Then I could see all the colors in that illustration. When I increased the zoom percentage, I could still see all the colors. CorinneSD (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• HMmm. Weird. Hafspajen (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

About the image, do these look different on your computer?

SVG files can be weird. A first step in debugging would be to restart you computer to see if the problem persists. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think both look exactly the same... Hafspajen (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC).

They look exactly the same to me, but there's material on the web about programmers having various problems with various browsers and SVG files. Corinne, what browser are you using? Firefox, Chrome? The coding for the first image has an alt= parameter that the second one lacks, so this is just an experiment to see if that might correlate with losing the colour. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Both look the same. Black and white. Zoom set at 125%. When I went down to 110% and then 100%, they stayed black and white. When I clicked on the first picture to enlarge it, it turned to color. When I went back to this talk page, they stayed in color, even when I increased the zoom to 125%.

I have Google Chrome. CorinneSD (talk) 20:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Four years ago, people were saying things like "I always end up using another browser to view such files from Misplaced Pages." about svg with Chrome. Would updating Chrome and downloading Firefox be reasonable experiments? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This is the first time I've had any trouble seeing color in any WP picture or illustration. I switched to Google Chrome about a year ago after having some trouble with Internet Explorer, and I haven't had any problems with it. I'll stick with it for now. I looked at those image tests, and everything was fine. CorinneSD (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Corinne, you might try making an entry at Village_pump_(technical), that when you view the image embedded in the page html it shows in black and white, but when you go to the original image (clicking to enlarge it) it shows in colour. Somebody might know of a change to mediawiki software that could have this effect. They'll probably want to know what version of Chrome you are using. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, and I will, but first I wanted to ask you if you think I should include a link to our discussion here about the illustration in today's featured article. If you do, I would like to ask whether you could make a new section for the discussion. That way, a tech would not have to wade through our discussion of ambery, amber, blue bottle, and blue amber to find it. I'll await your response before going to the tech page. CorinneSD (talk) 00:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Image viewing

Here, where the voting is happening for Misplaced Pages:Featured picture candidates‎; there are some tests, they are to test your computer, at right side, just before the voting starts. Check them out, and tell me what you saw. look after: Is my monitor adjusted correctly? Hafspajen (talk) 20:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

By the way, in that picture of C in Wikiland, above, do you see a face in the tree stump behind the three figures? CorinneSD (talk) 21:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ha, smart of you. You are also welcome to vote, it is for people with good taste and so, but you both qualify galantly... We need more votes. Hafspajen (talk) 21:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Neat, thanks. My monitor was indeed malajusted for contras

I think it's great that you're organizing your talk page since so many topics have been mentioned, but now I don't see my question to Hafspajen about voting. Was that just a joke? CorinneSD (talk) 00:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Hildesheim rose

Looks like this article from the main page will be vandalized, will you keep an eye on it? Thousand-year Rose, DYK, did you know... Some guy from Boston. Hafspajen (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wonderful, as soon as one IP is blocked another pops up. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

No mention of the five brothers? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:13, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

..::Mmm, nice, never heard that one, five brothers... Hafspajen (talk) 23:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Why, it is sourced. Hafspajen (talk) 23:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Rosa canina has a very peculiar breeding system, and I suspect that there was an authoritative source that says it is Rosa canina L. subsp. canina, and then listing some other subspecies that it isn't. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Now is an editor trying to remove the same thing, and the whole thing is sourced... I am reverting too much now. Hafspajen (talk) 23:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Here, it is the Germans who wrote this, from the Cathedral, they should know... http://www.domsanierung.de/en/1000-years-age-rosetree Hafspajen (talk) 23:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Tell me if this is correct or not? I know that there are many rosa canina types. Hafspajen (talk) 23:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This document seems to seriously discuss the botany, but unfortunately doesn't show all pages online. It shows part of a letter from H. Christ:

Nur in Einem Punkt weicht unsere Hidesheimer Rose vom Typus, also von canina Lutetiana ab: und zwar durch den Ansatz doppelter Zahnung, welche deren Blättchen gar nicht selten zeigen. Dieses Merkmal im Zusammenhang mit den Spuren von Drüsen, welche bei ihr auftreten, nähert sie einer andern, in fast gleicher Häufigkeit bei uns vorkommenden canina-Form; der dumalis Bechstein, welche sich auszeichnet durch unregelmässige Doppelzahnung un zerstreute gestielte Drüsen an den Blattstilen und dem Rande der Kelchzipfel. Beide Formen: dumalis und Lutetiana, zeigen häufige Uebergänge, sodass es Standorte giebt, wo eine scharfe Grenze absolut nicht zu siehen ist, und man nich weiss, ob man die Rosen eher mit dem einen oder dem andern Namen bezeichnen soll. Unsere Pflanze hält nicht die genau Mitte, sondern liegt etwas näher bei Lutetiana; sie ist einer der vielen Rosen, die ich in der Correspondenz mit mienen Freunden als R. canina L. forma Lutetiana (Lem.) versus dumalem (Bechst.) zu bezeichnen mir stets erlaubt habe.

but Rosa canina forma lutetiana is a name that seems not to have been validly published (it isn't listed at ipni.org). There is a Rosa lutetiana Léman listed. There are also many rose names due to Christ. This is a problem; the list of Christ roses looks incomplete, for example, there is Rosa canina L. var. evanida (Christ) P.V.Heath, but there is no Rosa evanida or Rosa…var evanida or Rosa… forma evanida that could have been moved by P.V.Heath to make that name.

I think the best thing to do here is to say that it is R. canina and not one of the historical cultivated roses R. alba or R. gallica, just as the original source says. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It is most seriously a canina, and the one with no hairy leaves. Hafspajen (talk) 00:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• These are ALL Rosa canina
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Yes, I completely agree with the statement on the source "A definition of the single plant as a variety or subspecies is without meaning in view of the diversity of wild roses and the numerous hybrid forms as a result of hybridisation." They can mate with just about any rose, using only a small component of its genetic constitution (often 1/5 parts from the male parent, 4/5 parts from the female parent), so tracking their morphology is particularly difficult, the variation nearly infinite. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Conchita Wurst...

...is performing on TV across Europe tonight, hence the rash of friendly edits (sigh...) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't heard of her before. Nice that she made the cut. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)