Talk:Nerium oleander and its toxins

oleander toxins- very thorough article. But if your article is about the toxins themselves, i would suggest giving a little less background on the plant. Also, you may include exactly where and how the toxins are developed within the plant. Is there a certain process the plant itself goes through in order to produce these toxins? How are the toxins stored? Do they have to be reproduced within the plant after a certain period of time and, if so, how are they reproduced? You also mention that the toxins contain "cardiac glycosides"-elaborate on this term a bit. Ecain 01:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I will start by working on the Cardiac Glycosides. I may put a brief definition in the text but I am also going to try to get the word to link over to related articles that explain it in depth. I am not sure how to do that so at the least their will be the definition. The other questions that you posed are excellent questions. Unfortunately I do not have any answers for you. I will try to find them but I think it may be very hard to do. As for leaving out or minimizing the general information on the plant I will not do this. One of the main reasons that I put this article up is to make people aware of haw dangers a beautiful plant that could in some cases be growing in their own back yard can be. Unfortunately many poisonings go untreated for too long simply because nobody can identify the substance. I feel that this information is important and helpful so that people can identify what this plant is. I will however consider revising my title although this may not happen in the time for class.--LPW 13:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Additional info on Nerium oleander
Your informative article prompted me to do additional reading on the Nerium oleander. I found the oleander's seed dispersal to be interesting and could be added to your article to describe how the plant becomes prolific in certain areas. The follicle of the Nerium oleander produces a parachute seed with a crown of silky hairs which aids in wind despersal. Also statistics on the number of humans worldwide or in the United States that are poisoned by the plant would be interesting. Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the tips I will have to do some more reading an this type of info so that I can add it at a later date. I will also try to find some statistics however in my research so far it seems that this type of data is unclear because it is hard to track poisonings and most of the time medical facilities do not necessarily know or identify what the cause was. but I will look again.--LPW 15:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

sorry i didn't stamp my previous post that referenced seed dispersal--Mickydog 16:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

is this the original form of this article, or has it been merged with something else? if this is the original form, then this is excellent! very very informative and well-written. i learned a lot from it and honestly wouldn't change that much, the only thing i would suggest is maybe opening the article with a better description of the plant. what i mean is, relate it to the reader. why should anyone care about this particular plant? there are lots of poisonous plants in the world, why should we be concerned with this one? why does it pose greater threat than the others? maybe tell us why people have gotten poisoned. the only time you did this was when you mentioned burning the bark or using the stems as skewers, but when you talked about the leathal aspect of the plant, you related it in terms of the leaves being ingested. why would someone do this? is it used as food or spice? if this info was included, it would really help it to hit home with the reader. check out

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/8513/31402/351437.html?d=dmtContent

to see some uses people might get in trouble with. great job and wonderful use of sources. aharris6

Thanks for all the insight and the complements, very appreciated. It is my understanding that most of the poisonings related to this plant are accidental however it is sometimes used in suicides and in homicides. The problem is this is widely variable from place to place. I will work on trying to find some good reliable information on this but it may take some time to find. I appreciate the interest.--LPW 21:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The reason you may be confused about whether it is merged is that I have tagged it as to be merged. The reason for that is that it largely duplicates the existing, Oleander, article.  As the latter is more conformant to Wikipedia style guidelines for articles and plant articles, and has a simpler title, I've proposed the merge should be into that article.  It appears to me that there is sufficient additional material to justify a merge, rather than simply deleting the current article as a duplicate.


 * The alternative resolution of the conflict would be to remove the general background on Oleander from this article and make it a much deeper article on the toxicology, then reduce the toxicology in the main article to a short entry with a reference to this article for the full details.


 * --David Woolley 21:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup
The original removal of the cleanup flag was premature; the References were in nothing like the correct format. I think I've fixed that, but the article is still uncategoried, has very long paragraphs, lacks sub-headings, and has a potential introduction that doesn't summarise the whole article.

As a plant article, it needs a taxobox. However, as noted elsewhere, it duplicates an existing article which already has such a box, and a better solution is to add the new material into that article, rather than cleanup this one.

--David Woolley 21:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I added a toxobox. Working on other things that you have pointed out is their anything elce you would like Fixed? --LPW 20:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have added some sub-headings and categoried the artical. thanks for the tip. I will add more and ajust them as needed or as other changes are made. any more addvice or thoughts is welcomed. Thanks --LPW 21:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No I would much rather clean my page up so that it could stand alown. Otherwiz i would prefur to add hers to mine. Let me know what you think.--LPW 20:33, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia. It's not like web sites, where each site has an owner and multiple sites cover the same topic.


 * If two articles essentially duplicate each other, either one is completely deleted, or one is merged into the other and then deleted. The direction of the merge is determined by things like which has the better title, and which is more complete.  Currenty Oleander has the better title, and is marginally more complete, although the title is the main advantage.


 * As no-one owns an article, you can, and should contribute to the Oleander article, rather than trying to create a competing article. That can mean foregoing ego, and, for example, leaving the original text where it duplicates points in your text (although, you can, for example, add inline references). --David Woolley 22:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that the articles duplicate each other. there is similar information. However, this article goes more in-depth into all aspects of the plant. What it looks like, where it grows, what effects it has on people or animals, the toxicology, etc. So with that said if I were to merge the articles what would that mean would most of what I wrought get cut out? would it stay the same? what would lead and what would follow? Who dose the merging? Who decides what stays and what goes?

You pointed out the title needs to be simpler well if I changed mine to Nerium oleander would that be better "shorter"? Yes I know that that dose not solve the duplicate problem but I would like to know if that would help it "conform" to the standards better.

I know that you are probably thinking why is this person being so difficult. Well I am not trying to be but I have also put a great deal of time and effort into this piece and I guess I am just afraid that its going to be completely mutilated if it gets merged. I also think that their is a great deal of important information in this piece and it would be a shame to loose it.--LPW 20:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * This article should be merged with Oleander. If it hadn't been tagged already when I read it, I would have tagged it the exact same way for the same reasons as already stated. Oleander is better written and has a better style, better title, and info about its toxicity works much better as a section than a separate article.  Also, the title of this article is just plain bad. We don't make articles like "Cobra and its toxins" or "Elephant and its trunk". FireWorks 17:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability Excellent
As I may appear very critical about this article, I'd like to point out that one of the reasons that I spent so much time reformatting and detailing the References section is that the article is a rare example on Wikipedia of one that is properly sourced and has sources for each statement properly identified. --David Woolley 10:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

HI, and thank you for all of your comments. I had deleted the original tag because I am new to this and did not know what needed to be cleaned up. However, now that you have started to clue me in to what needs work I am eager to start the clean up process. I will start with looking at the things that you have already commented on. Any advice or tips that you have for me are appreciated. I would like very much for this page to hold to the standards of wikipedia. The only request that I have is if you think something needs work please be specific so I can fix it. --LPW 20:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)