Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of descriptive plant epithets (I–Z)/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC).

List of descriptive plant epithets (I–Z)

 * Nominator(s): - Dank (push to talk) 22:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, let's get this show on the road. The other half of this list is at List of descriptive plant epithets (A–H), and yes, I got permission to nominate this half before the other half is finished ... but it's almost done. (I was advised at WP:VPT not to put the whole list on one page.) There are a lot of annoying little technical points to consider here; I've mentioned some of them on this list's talk page. Hopefully, when we get the annoying stuff out of the way, the end result will be fun and useful for a wide range of readers. Many thanks to Dudley Miles for FLC-specific input, and especially to all the great writers of plant species articles ... this list is largely an attempt to highlight their excellent work. This list tries to do a lot of different things at the same time ... maybe too many things for the typical Featured List. It's all good, and any effort that reviewers are willing to put into making this a better list will be appreciated, regardless of the outcome of this FLC. - Dank (push to talk) 22:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I just swapped in 10 cropped images created by PawełMM at the Graphics Lab ... beautiful work! - Dank (push to talk) 12:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * We just finished List of descriptive plant epithets (A–H). - Dank (push to talk) 17:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Links to Glossary of botanical terms are all done now. - Dank (push to talk) 19:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Guerillero

The list is gorgeous. Very nicely done. A few thoughts -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  14:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Since you are using Stearn 2004 and Stearn 2002, you should probably include a year for at least that one in the sfn
 * Why does only Coombes get a citation in the table?
 * I'm really glad you liked it. I replaced "Stearn2" with "Stearn 2004" throughout; happy to make other replacements if required. All six of the main sources are (mainly) alphabetical glossaries or reference works, but Coombes alphabetizes by genus rather than by species, so readers will need page numbers to find the cites to the species. Everyone I asked was okay with leaving page numbers off for glossaries. A pageless citation to, say, Harrison wouldn't add any new information when we've already got an "H" column (which I can't take credit for thinking of ... that was Dudley's request). As a bonus (and this is in the footnotes), for those few places where a citation is necessary, the fact that the first 5 sources cited don't usually need page numbers means that the superscripts for those sources don't change, so readers who get familiar with the table will be able to tell who's being cited just by the number. - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Another issue that we don't usually see at FLC is: if we add templates for every citation, then we might need to split this list into three pages instead of two pages, and no one wants that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Mattximus
 * The lead needs some work. Leads in featured lists should not start with self-referential statements such as "This is the second half of a list" or include any mentions such as "this is a list of". A better opening sentence will include the definition explaining what descriptive plant epithets are and their purpose.
 * Thanks for your comments. Does this work for you as a first paragraph? If so, what are you looking for in a second paragraph? "Since the first printing of Carl Linnaeus's Species Plantarum in 1753, plant species have been assigned one epithet (name) for the species and one for their genus (a grouping of related species). These scientific names have been studied and catalogued by a variety of botanists, including William Stearn. Stearn (1911–2001) was one of the pre-eminent British botanists of the 20th century: a Librarian of the Royal Horticultural Society, a president of the Linnean Society and the original drafter of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants." 01:14, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I made the change (with a slight modification). Let me know. - Dank (push to talk) 00:19, 17 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Some concerns are "ianthinus" which is not in any reference, so it is unreferenced? How do we know you've included all unreferenced names? Mattximus (talk) 00:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Part of the answer is my last comment before your section: the page is already so large that it may not load for some readers. If we add templates for every citation, repetitively, all the way down the page, then we might need to split this list into three pages instead of two pages, and no one wants that. One thing I can do that may help is to move the sentence about Gledhill being a reference for every row back up from the footnotes; I'll do that now. So, every row in the table has at least two sources: Stearn's Dictionary, and Gledhill. - Dank (push to talk) 01:14, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Dudley

 * My main query is that I found the explanation of what the list covers confusing, and after reading the lead several times I am still confused about your sources. In paragraph 2 you say that all species epithets come from Stearns' dictionary, in para 3 that Gledhill's book is the source for all species epithets in column 1. You are not allowed to start the article "This is a list...", but I think you need to start the second or third para with something like "The article covers descriptive epithets for plant species listed in (sources)"
 * I'll be more precise about Gledhill and make an edit to deal with your next point; I think those two edits may fix the problem. - Dank (push to talk)
 * "All species epithets in the following list come from Stearn's Dictionary, except for words following "from" (which are related words from Classical Latin) and epithets following "Cf."" This is confusing as all cases of "from" or "Cf." are in the meaning column, not the epithet one. Presumably you mean alternative epithets given in the meaning column?
 * Great suggestion. In the original version, I had to do it that way because there were a lot of epithets from Stearn in the 3rd column and in the footnotes; I missed the fact that there are now none in the footnotes and only a few in the 3rd column. I've just made a few edits in the 3rd column along the lines of "Stearn lists ...", so now I can change the wording in the intro to what you're looking for (I think). - Dank (push to talk)
 * "this excludes all genus epithets" I think it would be better to leave this out and just say that it is a list of species epithets.
 * The query by about unreferenced items could be dealt with by adding a citation to Gledhill's The Names of Plants to the Epithets heading.
 * "Links to species". "Links to" in this heading is superfluous.
 * "Contents:" I think this should be above the key.
 * I don't follow; I don't know how to split Compact ToC into two pieces. I had it above the Key section originally, and you asked me to move it down. - Dank (push to talk)
 * Ah I had not seen Compact TOC done that way before. My point is that it seems to me more logical to have a contents for the whole article, not just for a few sections. You can do this by deleting "|seealso=yes |notes=yes" and adding at the end of the lead . Dudley Miles (talk) 14:54, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. - Dank (push to talk) 15:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You should give the issn for Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.
 * This is an impressive list. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated. I have done or am about to do everything you asked for, except as noted. - Dank (push to talk) 14:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I am not clear why the key has "cited to" instead of "cited in"
 * You seem to have deleted the explanation that H and S columns are not referenced because the works are in alphabetical order. You could add this as citations to the headings.
 * As many of the items in the Meaning column are additional epithets, you might consider changing the heading to "Meaning and additional epithets". Dudley Miles (talk) 17:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * All done (see if you agree). - Dank (push to talk) 17:47, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Still one niggle. I do not think it is helpful to readers to explain under a note to C why references are not supplied for H and S. (Also why use efn suffixes (such as efn-ur) to give note 1 and then the other notes as i to vi?). You could have a note to H: Adding a note to S  would make one note for both. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:54, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a disability issue (of sorts), and I'm not going to budge on this. Making multiple single-letter columns wider than they need to be, for no real gain, makes complicated tables ugly at best, especially for those of us who need a zoom of at least 120%. The C column is already wider than one letter because of the superscripts, so that's a better choice for where to put the footnote. It's not far from the H and S columns ... it's not like readers who would see a footnote next to the H or S are going to miss it next to the C ... and it's just as relevant to the C column. If you don't like it there, we could put it anywhere else, but not in the H or S column. And even in the C column, "iii" won't work; that would widen the column. I switched to upper-case footnotes for that to make it an "I". I could live with other options, including "γ", but probably not "iii". - Dank (push to talk) 19:23, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Support. I thoroughly disagree with your last comment, but we can agree to disagree on that. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:38, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks kindly. - Dank (push to talk) 19:54, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * "those that he doesn't cover verbatim" => "those that he does not cover verbatim"
 * Why does the contents table go all the way from A to Z when the article only covers I to Z?
 * It's one list across two pages. Click and see! - Dank (push to talk)
 * I would put note D in the column header rather than against the first asterisk
 * "Cyperus imbecillis,* Agrostis imbecilla*" - should that first asterisk be before the comma?
 * Well, it's less than ideal, so I've moved the ones with asterisks to the last position throughout. - Dank (push to talk)
 * This also occurs in a few other places
 * "Illustration of Epacris impressa" seems to be missing/not displaying. Don't know if this is a Commons issue?
 * Same for quite a few of the others
 * All of the images are coming up for me, but on a few occasions, I've had to refresh to get them all. For anyone who's wondering why this very long list is split across two pages ... this is an example of what can go wrong. It would be worse if I combined the two pages into one.
 * "Fatty; oily" - random first capital, none of the others have one
 * Think that's it from me - great work overall! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all done. Sorry about the very long list ... most of my plant lists will be a breeze compared to this page. - Dank (push to talk) 19:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Support - still can't get all the images to load but I'll accept that's a technical issue rather than a defect with the quality of the article itself..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:03, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Chris. Please let me know if the problem persists. - Dank (push to talk) 18:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Source review - Pass
Doing now. Aza24 (talk) 07:41, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're going to link Infobase Publishing and Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society I would link University of Chicago Press (which should be without the "the"), Cassell (publisher), Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press
 * The ISBN 13s should either be without any dashes or with all of them. At the moment they're all missing one dash, they should have 4 in each. The 4th dash should be after the 4th digit (e.g. Coombes: 978-1-6046-91962). I'm fairly certain that's the rule but if you need to check you can use the converter to convert to ISBN 10 and then convert them back to ISBN 13 where the 4th dash will be filled in.
 * Would also link Smithsonian Institution Press in further reading and tweak ISBNs like above
 * Reliability and rest of formatting looks good. Aza24 (talk) 07:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks much. I removed the links to Infobase and the journal, and removed all ISBN and ISSN hyphens. If that works for you, then everything's done, I think. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Lol that is one way to do it – I mean I guess I expected you to just link and add the hyphens but removing the links/hyphens entirely is also a acceptable solution. (Consistent formatting is what's important) Pass for source review. Aza24 (talk) 19:51, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thx again. - Dank (push to talk) 01:29, 5 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Support ~ HAL  333  23:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 23:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Giants2008 ( Talk ) 22:23, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.