User talk:Hamamelis

Hi, I am in school full-time now as a midlife (47 yr old) student, and may be on Wikipedia infrequently. I will check in once in a while, so if you leave a message for me, I will try to answer you as promptly as possible—but that may not mean soon!
On the other hand, I keep getting pulled back to editing by some mysterious force...Yikes! Hamamelis (talk) 04:46, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi

Thanks a lot, that's really cool. Keep up the good work. --Soman (talk) 21:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Musa jackeyi

I'm slowly adding stubs for the species of Musa (mostly when bored doing what I should be doing instead). Musa jackeyi is likely to be of interest to you. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Responded at your talk, thanks. Hamamelis (talk) 03:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Breen and Schornh.

Interesting discovery! I've found IPNI very responsive to queries, so I've e-mailed them at the contact address they give to ask if it's intended that this person has two abbreviations. I assume it isn't, but we'll see. They are also interested if you find an author without an abbreviation; I've had four or five added to IPNI. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, a case of reading the small print! I was referred to [1], Point 11. I thought that author abbreviations were unique for a person, but clearly not. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The two names were discovered as I was attempting to find a species authored by "Breen", and initially only dug up this interesting photo, but later found this (note the first entry), which prompted me to search under the maiden name. The google results are here - still haven't found a plant authored by "Breen" though. Hamamelis (talk) 03:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

George Kendall

I just saw your note on User:Jfhutson's talk page. If he was a delegate to the Synod of Dort, he definitely needs an article. But I can't find anything in The History of the University of Oxford about him being a delegate. Where did you get that info from? Most significantly, he isn't listed at List of participants in the Synod of Dort. St Anselm (talk) 22:19, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I see it has been reverted now. St Anselm (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have a good wikibreak!

That's a very sensible decision. The ranting is getting just too ridiculous. Best wishes, Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sminthopsis84. I would include my own (anti-ranting) rant as part of the ridiculousness, that's why I needed to back away. Hamamelis (talk) 06:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you now think that you'd prefer not to have said it (and I think it was all entirely justified), one could suggest that you could go back and delete it, but that would involve going back to look at that horrible talk page, so on the whole, it seems best to just take if off the watch list and get on with other parts of life. Those people who don't commune with plants can get very unpleasant to deal with, undoubtedly because they lack that soothing influence. Best wishes, Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: I like the muck, it probably looks lovely under a microscope. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You've been busy!

Hi, you've been busy adding botanical author abbreviations, I see. Great work! I'm wondering at what stage the lists should be further split up, i.e. what the maximum length of an individual page should be. Any ideas? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks. I'm very surprised at how many I'm finding! I never suspected there were so many articles that weren't already on the list(s). I was also beginning to think of another split soon. When you first did it, you either wisely or fortuitously split them exactly where they could be split again in the scheme of "A-C", "D-F", "G-I", J-L", "M-O", "P-S", "T-V", W-Z", which, in my opinion, would be ideal lengths (unless there are even more than I think there are!). Do you agree? Go ahead and re-split at will if you wish, as there seems to be a lot more yet to be added! Hamamelis (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I divided the names up to make the three lists more or less the same length. Currently the sizes of the articles are:

A-F 56kB
G-O 58kB
P-Z 53kB

It's a well known phenomenon that the first letter of names is not spread evenly through the alphabet, being biased towards the start, so I'd expect this to be true for botanical abbreviations. So my suggested next move would be to split each of these three into two, based on where the halfway point is. I just wasn't sure at what stage to make such a split. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I understand; to break each in half sounds sensible. I'm sure you're right about the phenomenon (there's certainly not much going on in X–Z). And if you'd rather stagger the splitting over time, instead of doing them all at once, that's fine as far as I'm concerned. Regarding the kilobyte size, I can only say that I'm having trouble loading the pages even now (about a minute most of the time, even for the smallest one), but maybe it's just my connection, or my computer that makes it so slow. I understand, also, that there's a trade off to be considered with achieving a nice manageable page size, and then having the inconvenience of having to click around to more pages. For me, I would rather have more smaller pages, but others may prefer it the way it is (for a while, anyway). Have I understood you correctly? Hamamelis (talk) 23:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you are having loading problems then the articles are clearly too long. I'll put splitting on my to-do list. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your kind thoughts

Thanks very much for your kind messages. I'm also very glad that you're back. You've been doing an amazing amount of work! I didn't see before that you were born in Erie, Pennsylvania -- I've been there with a group of students who kept intoning its name. Eventually we drove past, and they mercifully stopped. In our haste, we didn't see much of the place, unfortunately. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:11, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strange when you think about it: our typed words are all we have in the virtual world to express ourselves to virtual others (and I sometimes get them wrong and offend without meaning to). I'm amazed that some actually want to use their words in the service of hurting (we both know who). It's best to not engage, if possible, with those relatively few who seem to somehow feel empowered by being trolls. Glad you didn't let one get the best of you.

Erie is a rather flat, quaint, working-class paper mill "small town". The best part of it, to me, is the oddly peninsular Presque Isle State Park sticking incongruously into Lake Erie, which is worth visiting for it's flora and fauna. Haven't been there in over a decade, but its a very peaceful place to experience on a rowboat. Hamamelis (talk) 14:53, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sándor Jávorka

With reference to this,

Could you direct me to the documentation which uses the person's name as the second operand of template:botanist?
The name "Sándor" is the normal Hungarian representation of the originally Greek name "Alexander", but I'd be interested (and surprised) if you can find any example where Sándor Jávorka has been referred to just as Alexander Jávorka. I think that the person who created the IPNI entry was just trying too hard, and "Alexander" can with benefit be omitted. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for asking me about it.

In answer to 1. — A long while ago most articles with the template had the last name, followed by the first in series. I have no idea why they're there, but many have them incorrect. I can't bring a real one to mind, but the person's name might be Abner Smith, with an article title of A. Smith. The template might show one of these → {{botanist|A.Smith|Smith, A}} or {{botanist|A.Smith|Smith, Abn.}}, which on the face of it seems inaccurate (if I had time to devote to changing so many badly named articles, I would) If having the second operand serves no purpose, I guess then they can safely be removed. Since most botanist articles I came across had the second operand, I assumed there was a reason for it, and so followed suit. You're probably right that it serves no purpose (if that is what you're implying), but then why, prior to my editing botanist articles in earnest, did/do so many already have this second operand? If, by chance, you are miffed at me for my using the word 'correcting' in my edit summary, I sincerely apologize; I edit in good faith and never mean to offend anyone. It just looked like something that was wrong and needed to be corrected.
In answer to 2. — My initial searching turned up this, and many other examples of his name being shown parenthetically (i.e. "Sándor (Alexander) Jávorka"), but few (40 on my computer) examples of "Alexander Jávorka" (see here). It seems, based on pretty solid numbers from the search I did, that it shouldn't be omitted, but should be included this way: "Sándor (Alexander) Jávorka". I don't understand why omitting the name, when even JSTOR uses it, would be beneficial.

And I think if anyone was overreaching in the meaning it wasn't IPNI, it was me!

My own point — I don't feel that strongly about having the name there. If you want to lose it, I won't challenge you. I really loath unnecessary drama (WP is crawling with it).

Truly hope I didn't offend you :) Hamamelis (talk) 17:53, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply.

In the case of template:botanist I had also noticed that the second operand was often used, but the reason seems to have been lost in the mists of history. As it has no apparent effect on the displayed output it doesn't matter either way, so I shall treat the question with the apathy it deserves.
Your searches for Alexander actually throw up something else. Nearly all the entries you have found are to a living Slovak small businessman called Alexander Jávorka, not to a dead Hungarian botanist. The only references to the botanist I found are this one, written in Slovak about his birthplace and perhaps making a bit of a political point in not using the Hungarian form, and the article in the Spanish wikipedia on es:Jószef Andrásovszky. I think I'll be able to find a suitable wording to cover this in our article. The word "occasionally" comes to mind. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Occasionally" works for me, too. Hamamelis (talk) 21:47, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re the second parameter to {{Botanist}}, this is completely ignored by the current version of the template, so there's no point in specifying it. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Peter, for clarifying that; I'll stop adding it. Hamamelis (talk) 08:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Otoba

Most of those are either synonyms or not at a high level of certainty. Why bother? DCDuring (talk) 19:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because I provided a verifiable reference on the page. Most articles on WP with lists of species sadly don't provide any refs for the list (I don't know why not). Your source, IPNI, only tabulates names without regard to acceptability. You may change the list if you wish, but please add a verifiable reference one way or the other. I'm sure there are better refs to go by than Tropicos, but it's better than IPNI. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 19:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree both that verifiable references are needed for lists of species (but are often sadly lacking) and that IPNI is not a suitable reference for a species list. The Plant List is usually a good starting place for those families not in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in this case, for Otoba, TPL took all its information from Tropicos. (I only know because I just checked it) As you imply, the World Checklist has as yet has nothing on the genus. Expediency led me to Tropicos (my own laziness?). In any case, DCDuring needs to find a better reference if he/she insists that 'Most of those are either synonyms or not at a high level of certainty.' Where does the assertion come from? I don't doubt that he/she may be right, but his/her reference(s) are important. Hamamelis (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, Peter, I see you did remove two that I had there. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 22:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, TPL didn't take all its info from Tropicos if you look here; it uses draft/review data from WCSP as well, which is one of TPL's advantages. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I spoke in haste. My error was due to personal time constraints; in my hurried state, I must only have seen that each species at TPL (excepting the two you pulled from the article) agreed with those listed at Tropicos. In general, I usually use TPL first for the very reasons you state. In this case, I didn't. Sorry for the error. Hamamelis (talk) 06:06, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, don't apologize. Apologies are due from those who add unsourced lists of species, often merged from different, out-of-date and incompatible sources, and then get annoyed when the list is revised to match a reliable secondary source, not from those that revise lists according to reliable sources (which Tropicos is, just not the best when the genus is covered by WCSP or TPL). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, they're the ones who should be apologizing.... oh, wait. That's me. Sorry.

Explanation: I haven't gotten the hang of what online databases are acceptable sources here. For Wiktionary purposes none of them would be, though I use them as sources of terms that probably have attestable usage. Whether the term is officially accepted or ever has been are not determinative of inclusion there.

Queries:

What is your assessment of the various taxonomy databases?
How do WP's standards for inclusion and for reference sources compare with those of Wikispecies?

I'd appreciate any constructive advice anyone could give me. DCDuring (talk) 17:14, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't claim any expert knowledge, as I'm not a botanist. But the consensus among people at WikiProject Plants, many of whom work professionally in various fields of botany and/or other life sciences, seems to be that the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families is the best, but it is woefully incomplete (in my experience), at least for what they are ready to display to the public on their web site. For plant articles, it might be best to post your same question at the plants project page, here. I can almost guarantee that you'll get plenty of response, but definitely be courteous. Good luck, and thanks! Hamamelis (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my two pennies' worth. WCSP is good because it's associated with Kew (still the foremost herbarium worldwide) and all the entries are reviewed for acceptability. Although we don't seem to do so, you can source any particular taxon to a named reviewer. As WCSP started as a list only of monocot families, it is, as Hamamelis says, woefully incomplete as yet, although The Plant List, which seems the next best (because it collates information from different sources) has the WCSP "in review" data. Tropicos and USDA often seem to be rather out of date. The Australian databases appear to be good, but I haven't written about relevant plants.

Paper sources are a tricky issue. Most books are way out of date; nothing before 2009 will use APG III as we do here. Specialist monographs have the problem that you don't know if the author's views will gain widespread acceptance; in some cases they clearly haven't. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. What scholars need for their purposes is not identical to what would be useful for my purposes at Wiktionary, though the databases mentioned are useful for mine. I won't be using print sources for the purpose I have in mind, which is to have a family of external link templates to insert in various types of taxonomic name entries, both for sourcing and to encourage supplementation of Wiktionary entries, with vernacular names, synonyms, and hypernyms, and creation of new entries, usually for taxa at one lower level that that of the entry. I'm not sure how expansive I'd like the list to be and whether to include any non- or marginally scholarly sources or specialist sources maintained by a small group of scholars. What I'm trying to do with taxonomic names is get etymology, grammar, vernacular names, and translations a home. In a way every Wiktionary taxon entry should be almost exclusively a multilingual disambiguation page. DCDuring (talk) 22:40, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information in list of botanists by author abbreviation

I don't think it is useful in the list to add this information as it does not clear up confusion or anything. I would like to remove it. Please discuss at the article talk page if you disagree. --AfadsBad (talk) 04:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because I myself am unsure, I've responded at the article talk page. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of sequenced plant genomes

Hi Hamamelis, for sure there are a lot of sequenced plant genomes missing from that list. It's a typical Wikipedia thing I guess? A constant work in progress? Please feel free to edit the description to make it clearer.

Many thanks, --Dan Bolser (talk) 16:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Human religions

Hello, I was going to add a coment on the religions section on the "Human" page, but apparently I can't. Anyway, I saw you edited something in the talk section and I would like to know why Baha'i is listed as one of the most popular? It clearly isn't, as, for what I researched, there are only about 5-7 million followers. Do you have an explanation dor that? How can I post there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodrigo170988 (talk • contribs) 19:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rodrigo170988, if you were able to post here, you should have been able to post there as well (as long as you were already logged on). But don't post "comments" to the article itself, as the talk pages are reserved as places to discuss problems or improvements of articles. I'd advise making sure you are logged on first, then ask your question on the article's talk page (here). I know you'll get some answers, because the Human article is on many editor's watchlists.

If, after reading this, you still aren't able to make edits there (which would be strange) you can try asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) to find out if there is a technical glitch of some kind.

As to my edit to the Human talk page, I only contributed by doing a google search and presented the results about what I found; and I expressed no opinions/interpretations, but others did. Good luck! Hamamelis (talk) 13:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jiddat al-Harasis

Thanks for your edits; both DYK nominators upped their game and improved the article greatly after your work. It's an important topic, imo, and I appreciate your contributions, as I think that this is a topic that a small article on English Wikipedia will be provide a very useful starting point. Thanks. --(AfadsBad (talk) 16:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Yes, it is interesting (little-known topics tend to be more so for me than those which I already know a lot about, although I know it's the opposite with many people). I'm glad to see the article is quickly improving. Hamamelis (talk) 08:13, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited: Art & Feminism Edit-a-thon

Art & Feminism Edit-a-Thon - In a city near you! - You are invited!

File:Csaky madonna.jpg

The first ever Art and Feminism Edit-a-thon will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2014 across the United States and Canada - including Chicago! Wikipedians of all experience levels are welcome to join!

Any editors interested in the intersection of feminism and art are welcome. Experienced editors will be on hand to help new editors.
Bring a friend and a laptop! Come one, come all! Learn more here!

SarahStierch (talk) 05:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers

An abstract you might be interested in. The publication might be a more amazing phenomenon than the subject being investigated. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:13, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Best line from the abstract: 'Given practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated'. Thanks for your precognitiveness. Before I read this, I had no idea I'd be reading it. Hamamelis (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd respond, but perhaps I've already done so in the future. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 01:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trying again

I've decided to try again to make Cucurbita as good as we can. I'll start by going back over the peer review. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you again for your long support and superb guidance. Best wishes to you on the New Year. HalfGig talk 13:07, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Salvinia

The reversion of my edit – why? Chris the speller ^yack 01:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Chris, I was using a mobile thingy and hit the wrong button. ARG! I thought I rereverted. If not, please do so. I am in class and can't do it right away. Best wishes — Hamamelis (not logged in). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.76.83.77 (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Chris the speller ^yack 13:42, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Global account

Hi Hamamelis! As a Steward I'm involved in the upcoming unification of all accounts organized by the Wikimedia Foundation (see m:Single User Login finalisation announcement). By looking at your account, I realized that you don't have a global account yet. In order to secure your name, I recommend you to create such account on your own by submitting your password on Special:MergeAccount and unifying your local accounts. If you have any problems with doing that or further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 15:59, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lilaeopsis schaffneriana

Hi Hamamelis. The creator of Lilaeopsis schaffneriana is no longer around, so I am turning to you as the second contributor who worked on the article. I left two "clarification needed tags" that I am hopeful you might be able to resolve. Would you mind talking a look? Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for asking me. I fixed a link in the article that led to a blank search page at NatureServe (which wasn't what you've asked). I will look further into it when I have more time (maybe this weekend). If you haven't tried yet, you can also solicit help from Wikiproject Plants at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants. I'm not a professional botanist, but a lot of those who frequent the Project are, and probably would be better suited to clarify for you. Hamamelis (talk) 12:13, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Flora of the Zanzibar Archipelago

Hi, Hamamelis. I just came across Category:Flora of the Zanzibar Archipelago and I know you have created other flora categories. Do you have any special affinity for that particular category? Any thoughts on using the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions? The WGSRPD doesn't recognize the Zanzibar Archipelago as a region, instead including it within the Tanzania category. That would be a reason to upmerge it to Tanzania, but I don't know much about the region. Are there many species with restricted distributions to Zanzibar? Do you have other general thoughts about WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD? I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on any of that. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 17:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rkitko, I'm not married to most things I create, so please feel free to upmerge to the region. It sounds sensible. The only affinity is towards the possibility of little islands (not always literally) of isolation, e.g.: "x plant(s) is/are endemic to (say) the Belcher Islands". I thought the cat might be a starting point for figuring out what plants were endemic to the Zanzibar islands (I don't know if the number is great, though I'd bet there are at least some). Guess I'm a gradualist.

But … I'm not so active these days, so please do whatever you think best (with consensus, of course).

Thanks very much for asking, Hamamelis (talk) 18:00, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's certainly all sensible. There seems to be consensus that small areas like this can certainly have categories like Category:Endemic flora of the Zanzibar Archipelago. I'm not certain how many plants are endemic; a quick search didn't turn up any quick and easy reliable sources. (Aside: Wildlife of Zanzibar is incredibly skewed toward fauna. It would be nice to fix that eventually.) According to a 2001 guide to the world's floras, there are two works that might be useful: The useful and ornamental plants in Zanzibar and Pemba (1949) and Flora of Pemba Island: A Checklist of Plant Species (1992), neither of which I have immediate access to. At the very least, I know that Oeceoclades zanzibarica is endemic to the archipelago! Even though much of the archipelago's area is now consumed with cultivation of coconuts or other crops, there must be other endemics. I'm quite surprised at the lack of a decent review of the flora. (Grant application, anyone?)

Thanks for letting me know your thoughts on it. This category certainly isn't high on my to-do list, so I may get around to working with it later on. Perhaps if I ever get my hands on those books I could transition it to an endemics category. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 18:41, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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