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:WikiProject Plants - Misplaced Pages

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Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to plants. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.

Title

WikiProject on plants

Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to describe all plants, that is, all species belonging to the kingdom Plantae.

Parentage

This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Tree of Life

WikiProject Science.
WikiProject Biology
WikiProject Tree of Life
WikiProject Plants

Descendant WikiProjects

Similar WikiProjects

No similar WikiProjects have been named.

Participants

Structure

Hierarchy definition

No classification of this project has been defined.

Goals

  1. Describe all familes, genera and species of the kingdom Plantae.
  2. For species, describe botanical properties, distribution, multiplication, usage in medicine, usage as food, pre 17th century documents where it was mentioned ('classical documents'), tips for garden cultivation, trivia such as 'this flower is the symbol of the Yukon district).
  3. Develop and implement a robust method of naming plant article for the ease of navigation and searching for Misplaced Pages users.

Plant article naming conventions

At present there is no official and agreed article naming policy. Considering the use of binomial names and a plethora of common names robust system of assigning the names of plant articles. The following is a tentative start:

  • The use of binomial nomenclature names makes Misplaced Pages inaccessable for the majority since categories will give lists of the scientific names and not the common name. See Category:Trees of New Zealand as an example.
  • Use the binomial name if no common name exists.
  • If a plant is endemic the common name should be used.
  • If more than one common name exists for a plant the most common one is to be used.
  • Indigenous names, if not the same as the common name, should be redireted to the main article of the species as well as being noted in the article.
  • If there is more than one common name only the commonly used common names should be redirected to the main article. Disused names should be noted in the plant article but not redirected unless notable.
  • Pages that discuss plants in a genus should use the binomial name but a common name should be listed in the article as well. If there are numerous common names this rule does not apply. In this situation the article name would be the binomial name and all the common names mentioned in the article and/or redirected to it.
  • Plant names for invasive plant or introduced plant articles should be named after the name used in their country of origin. Names used in other parts of the plant's current range, where diffeent to the counrty of origin, should be redirected to the main article.
  • Cosmopolitan plants should not not be allocated to any category for a country's flora unless notable. This would clutter up the main article. An example is bracken which is found on every continent except Antarctica.
  • If a plant is found in less than about three countries it sould be included in the appropriate flora categories for those countries. If common names differ for the same species between the countries the appropriate redirect page for the common name should include the flora category. For example Wineberry (New Zealand) should be in Category:Trees of New Zealand rather than Aristotelia serrata.
(See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Plants#Plant article naming conventions for a discussion of the above points.)

An alternate strategy, revised to account for MPF's comments.--Curtis Clark 04:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Allow use the common name for:
    • Plants with single-word or short English common names in wide use, especially if they are economically or culturally significant (e.g., maize, apple, saffron, hemp). When possible, separate articles should be created under the scientific names to cover specifically botanical information, and the articles should be cross-referenced.
  • Always use the scientific name for:
  • Prefer the scientific name for:
    • All other plants.
  • In categories:
    • Use a listing that sorts by scientific name, but preserves the common name if that is the article name, e.g. ]. This preserves the expected collation for specialists, but still allows plants with common names to be located.
    • Use categories of common name redirects (see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Plants#Some thoughts).
  • Redirection:
    • If one or more common names are associated with a single scientific name, which is also an article name, the common names should all redirect to the scientific name.
    • If a common name can refer to more than one plant, it should be a disambiguation page. (If it can refer also to non-plants, the alternate uses can be mentioned at the top of the article, e.g. apple.)
    • If an article is named by the common name, the scientific name should redirect to it.
    • When there are alternate scientific names (as a result of disagreements about generic placement or circumscription, or because of historical use of an incorrect name), these should redirect to the article name.

Here's one example of confusion that already exists, Bay Laurel in California is an accepted common name for Umbellularia californica, but in Misplaced Pages, Bay Laurel is THE common name for Laurus nobilis, and one cannot find the California Bay Laurel by searching Misplaced Pages by common name.

http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/umbcal/all.html (And, yes, I know it's not listed in the Jepson Manaul online as a common name.)

  • "The use of binomial nomenclature names makes Misplaced Pages inaccessable for the majority since categories will give lists of the scientific names and not the common name." The solution to this is not doing away with binomial nomenclature which opens the world of nature up to everyone, but to include common names, when they are available, after the scientific names in lists. And list plants that have common names by their common names, then direct users to the article under the scientific name.
  • A suggestion is made at one point that "If a plant is endemic the common name should be used." All plants are endemic--to somewhere.
  • As to plants without common names in English, there are more that meet this description than otherwise, making it readily apparent that there will be no order in botany on Misplaced Pages by using this method. Some plants will be under common names, but eventually a larger number will be under scientific names, and this will make Misplaced Pages a confusing mess for those seeking botanical information.
  • Also, "Plants with contrasting common names in different regions" should use scientific names to title articles ignores the fact that almost all plants have different common names in different regions because people speak different languages, and common names are just that: the common name for a plant in a specific region. Common names ARE regionalisms. That's why scientists use scientific names.
  • In botany, there is only one correct scientific name. When the names are in dispute one should simply check ICBN to find out the current correct one. Alternate or incorrect names should contain a note and direct to the correct name. The solution of using a common name won't work because all names with incorrect synonyms do not have common names, and one must make an additional Wiki-ception for this instance.

All these rules just cry out for making exceptions.

  • There is one good comment about a place where common names would be appropriate and useful, "Plants with single-word or short English common names in wide use, especially if they are economically or culturally significant." For economically and culturally significant plants, an article about that, their economic and/or cultural significance under their common name would be acceptable, with links to the botanical article, including the botanical descriptions and classifications under the scientific name.

The reason scientific binomials were so readily accepted after the publication of Linnaeus' tomes, was their immediate usefulness for conveying exactly what organism was being discussed. They were adopted long before they were codified, because they tell people all over the world exactly what organism you are speaking about.

To title articles by their scientific names and use all redirects to that article is simply easier, and it removes all confusion. When someone is armed with the scientific name, they can do additional research at whatever level. Armed with a common name in an incressingly international world, a student may wind up confused or with incorrect information and without the necessary knowledge (the scientific name) to know they are wrong.

There are simply too many ways to go wrong using common names as titles. And all these ways of going wrong are corrected by using the scientific name of the plant, without exceptions.

The botanical articles are a mess. There is someone who is going through hundreds of Misplaced Pages pages on flora and fauna and adding specific types of notes that are helpful. But the most helpful thing would be to set a standard and get it going right away, to make it easier for those who want to contribute and those who want to use Misplaced Pages.

I would like to help more, but it takes a lot of time to learn to use Misplaced Pages, and I can only go one step at a time.

Please consider redirecting common names to scientific names, and titling articles by their scientific names. If you don't do it now, someone will have to do it in the future to clean up the botanical pages. It won't be done the other way around: scientific names won't ever be converted in Botany to common names, it's simply the nature of plants, there are too many without common names, they travel around the world as weeds, and folks need to gain scientific, horticultural and natural history knowledge about them, and the way to do that is by using their singular names.

KP Botany 21:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

General strategy and discussion forums

Not yet decided. Currently there are several lists, such as:

Most use a standard taxonomy table, but is has undergone several variants, and the lists are hard to coordinate. Also, the quality of the articles varies wildly. Some are just a start, others have a decent length. This project should enable people to coordinate and discuss stuff in a more centralized place.

Infoboxes

  • See wiki infobox of the parent project.

Template

For an example where most of these aspects have been described, see Ragwort, though the description of some individual sections can be greatly improved, notably the botanical description and the medicine.

User Box

This user is a participant in WikiProject Plants.




Here is a User box that you can use if you would like to.

To add it to your user page type {{User WikiProject Plants}}


Template: botanist

I made a suggestion for a change to template:botanist. See template talk:botanist. Brya 17:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

To do

Category: