Template talk:Botany

Plant pathology
Don't forget about Plant pathology. It is just as important to Botany as is physiology. Chris 00:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Phytopathology is a subarticle from Plant physiology. --EncycloPetey 03:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Change of colours
The new colors (light blue background instead of green background) makes this template usable by people with visual impairments such as user:Frietjes. See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(accessibility). Dodoïste (talk) 13:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Reverting. This choice is at odds with the group that created/uses the template, and did not request their input or reach a consensus before making the change.
 * WP:deviations specifically allows deviations on a color-theme as WP:PLANTS has done with its (few) templates to match the dominant color for every taxobox on every article about a plant group. The consistent use of color is more professional than the inconsistent use proposed by the change.  --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not want to engage in a wheel-war. However, you can't just revert, as I'm enforcing the MoS. We'll have to agree on a change eventually.
 * "WP:deviations" does not allow such thing, as it is absolutely not accessible to people with disabilities. It allows site-wide CSS, which is not used here.
 * As for the "professionnal look", can you quote a usability expert on that? Or another professionnal? Because every web expert I've been working with told me exactly the opposite. Using such a large variety of colors, with poor contrast, and little consideration of site-wide design (style guided) is most unprofessional. Dodoïste (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not support the dark green because of the low contrast. If we want a green, it should be a lighter shade such as the rgb(144,238,144) we are using in plant taxoboxes. (I see that a change to palegreen2, which I think is rgb(144,238,144) or intended to be the same, was reverted, but there seem to be two issues, technical issues over syntax and whether that is a good color). I do think we should discuss this before resuming the edit war. Kingdon (talk) 13:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Rgb(144,238,144) is #90EE90. The contrast between the blue links and #90EE90 meets accessibility requirements, we can go for it. I made a test case here, I suppose we should raise the issue at the corresponding project. Dodoïste (talk) 14:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You really ought to have started by raising the issue at the project instead of making a unilateral move that was controversial. The correct steps would be to raise the issue and then seek a consensus solution.  Not to say "This color doesn't work, so I'm eliminating it."  The lighter green currently in place looks fine to me, and should be fine as long as the community affected agrees.  As Kingdon has pointed out, previous attempts to use a lighter shade did not end up green across most browsers.


 * 'm also curious about the edit comment "switching to #90EE90 per discussion" that you left before you mentioned it in this discussion. How can you do something "per discussion" when the discussion hasn't happened yet? The normal order of things is to have the discussion, then seek consensus, then implement the change. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not interested to reply to personal criticism. As for the light green color, previous attempts were not succesful because "palegreen2" is not a standardized color. I solved this issue. Dodoïste — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.173.207.141 (talk) 14:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Template deletions
While we can argue about exactly where page links should best be placed, simply deleting them is not the best solution. Otherwise those pages become orphaned, and not connected to the rest of the topic. The same goes for pages whose title we do not always agree with. Deleting them defeats the purpose of an overarching scheme. For that reason I have reverted some recent deletions, for now. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * One possible solution that I have considered for some time as this grows, is to have subtemplates. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. We probably ought to have a separate template for flowering plant morphology, or plant morphology, as that area has overgrown the rest of the template, and might have one on fruits as well.


 * As the person who initiated this template, let me say that the original intent was to cover the Core topics in Botany: the overarching and most widely-applicable topics that would rate as Core or Top in the WP:PLANTS assessment. That was the version that propogated onto multiple other language Wikipedias. The current version we have is loaded with more obscure terminology and with topics and pages that are subtopics of other more general articles. The guiding principle I used in setting up the template originally was to keep it simple and not overburden the articles that are more narrowly focused. e.g. you could go through a botany class without ever hearing the word cataphyll, but it would be difficult to make it through without archegonium, so the latter needs to be in there. Or, berry is a particular sort of fruit, and so ought to be covered in the more general article, so linking "fruit" in the template is sufficient to cover the various classifications of fruit. So, the twin principles of using the most general articles, and not including the subarticles, were what I used to set up the original. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Which I see was August [|August 2007]. When it had six sections and 34 entries. Well that is helpful, we haven't had much of a discussion here for a long time. However there are other considerations. It has become clear that pages on botanical topics have proliferated to a great extent since then, and most of us who write on botanical topics here are probably ignorant of most of them (a definite problem with an encyclopedia without professional editorial direction). A need has therefore arisen to find a way to bring them all together under an overarching format, so that editors an get a quick look at what is already out there, in an organised fashion. It strikes me that developing useful criteria for what exactly is a core topic would be extremely difficult, subjective and likely controversial. So a better approach might be either to organise it in an encylopaedic fashion, with say collapsible sections, or split it into subcategories linked to from here. On balance I would favour the former. However what we don't need is half the population adding to it and the other half deleting items from it. It then serves little purpose. We could of course take this to Wikiproject plants for a wider discussion, if those who use it cannot agree. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:20, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Large image in the template title
why is there a relatively large image in the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Botany&oldid=648377503 title line] of the navbox? it significantly enlarges the height of the title, which is especially noticeable when the template is collapsed. the same is true for [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AAmaryllidaceae&diff=641922077&oldid=641919453 Amaryllidaceae], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Liliaceae&oldid=641922369 Liliaceae], .... Frietjes (talk) 15:40, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I have seen icons, photos and images used inside navboxes, with some good results and some bad, but I have never seen icons or other images on the exterior title line of a navbox such as this. I am against any formatting that artificially increases the size of one infobox relative the size of other close navboxes, including this.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:54, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I also think this is a bad idea. The title line should bring the focus to the subject text only and nothing else. I would make this a golden rule for good navboxes. Images can be useful in the main template body, either left or right aligned. They are particularly useful when they fill what would otherwise be whitespace and the image helps contextualise the links (flowers are actually a pretty good example here). The images on these template should be right aligned into the body as a common sense move. SFB 23:56, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The image size can easily be adjusted, of course. Incidentally the practice of having an image in the title line seems to be widespread on WP. Actually I think it draws attention to the collapsed navbox in a useful way --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:46, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Template overload
This template is becoming too large and unwieldy. We need to either pare it down or split off some major topic to a separate template. Plant morphology would have enough for a separate template. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:09, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree this template is probably too large, but this should not stop updates. Concerning overdivision / overload / mismatch of topics. "Reproduction • Evolution • Ecology" is a mismatch of topics which is solved by division. I know of no enthusiast that considers a "Succulent plant" as a "Habit". "Corm", "Stolon", and "Tuber" should have the same status as "Bulb" and "Rhizome". I think capitalizing "cultivar", "cultigen" and "grex" are good copy edits. I just added "Monocots" and "Eudicots", certainly more appropriate than "Grasses". I have never created a template but it is easier to destroy than create.User-duck (talk) 23:49, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We already have a separate template for plant classsification, so the subgroups need not be listed here. I removed Grasses as well. Rhizoids are not a subtopic of roots. Leaves and shoots are not part of stems, but rather the leaves and stems are parts of the shoot system, so those were bad copy edits. We really need to reduce or split this template. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:07, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Potentially desirable links
I noticed Columella (botany) and Sarcotesta are not included in this navbox. Would it be worthwhile including them? Ypna (talk) 11:58, 26 September 2020 (UTC)