Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Stearn's botanical names (T–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 archived by PresN via CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk) 00:26, 15 June 2020 (UTC).

Stearn's botanical names (T–Z)

 * Nominator(s): - Dank (push to talk) 21:10, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Shout out to my partner Johnboddie, who helped a lot. This just got approved for DYK ... did you know that William T. Stearn wrote a very influential guide to botanical names? One goal is to provide a much-needed resource, especially for Wikipedians ... most of our current pages concerning binomial names (such as List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names) have more zoological species than botanical species. Feel free to edit or comment. Enjoy! I did. - Dank (push to talk) 21:10, 6 April 2020 (UTC) P.S. Note that citations for four of the glossaries usually omit page numbers ... templates like OED and ODNB are widely used without page numbers. It's up to you guys, but I'd prefer to leave them out ... it can be really helpful for Wikipedians who like to write about plants to know at a glance which sources have something to say about which words (the fact that most of the citation numbers don't change makes that easier). - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe it will help if I talk about my goals with this article. The lists I'm trying to write here are the resources I wish I had had when I started learning some botany. People can get a head start in botany if they know even a little bit of Latin or Greek (from knowing Latin and Greek roots in English, or maybe from knowing some Italian or modern Greek, or knowing something about zoology, medicine, music ... it's a long list, basically anything that comes to us via the Enlightenment or New Latin). But the Latin and Greek origins of botany sometimes get buried ... there are a lot of other sources for botanical names. Stearn's book is a good one for making the connections clear, and he was a giant in the field. (It's hard to avoid puns in botany, get used to it.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:59, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Initial comments –
 * All images should include alt text
 * I don't have any preference on this. Since you're the first reviewer, if you want to give me your sense of what alt text is supposed to cover, that will be fine. But all the images already have either alt text or "alt=", and this is generally what people are looking for when they ask for alt text. If you want a lot more than what's there now, I think eventually someone will disagree. If the caption says it's a flower, then blind people (and commuters listening to Wikipedia text through a screen reader) don't want alt text repeating that it's a flower. Generally, they want to know if an image conveys some important information that they can't get from the caption and other text. AFAICT, the captions have it covered.
 * Perhaps describe the colour and/or shape. And whatever else is in the picture.  For example, the alt text for the "English Elm avenue.jpg" image could read something like "Green elm trees on both sides of a garden walkway".  My apologies that this seems very mundane. —Bloom6132 (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Done in this edit. - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Was that what you were looking for? - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was. But alt text is still missing for the Burlington House, Fragaria vesca, and Corncobs images. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. - Dank (push to talk) 01:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

More comments to follow. —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there a similar FL of this topic for me to compare this one to? The lead looks a bit on the short side.
 * Stearn's botanical names (T) may or may not be helpful; your call. - Dank (push to talk) 19:55, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I can move some of the information in the Key up into the lead, if that will help. Or I can add anything else you like. - Dank (push to talk) 14:02, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Drive-by comment
 * It seems odd that, given that there's a large set of articles covering the information in the book, the book doesn't actually have an article........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:56, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I know. We've always had more zoology editors than botany editors on Wikipedia. I don't have the background to write an article on Stearn's book solo, but I'll be happy to collaborate on it. - Dank (push to talk) 14:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, ChrisTheDude, the ping below didn't work ... Dudley asked me to add the T's, so I did, does that work for you? - Dank (push to talk) 01:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Dudley

 * Following up the comment above, I think the titles of his books should be red links as deserving articles.
 * Redlinked one, removed the other.
 * The lead is very short for an FL. Is no more information available?
 * Happy to add anything to the lead, suggestions are welcome ... but what do I talk about? Once the point is made that Stearn was a preeminent botanist (has the point been made?), then saying more about him wouldn't be directly relevant to this book.
 * I think one or two paragraphs explaining taxonomic nomenclature and its history would be helpful. I would mention Linnaeus, although you may disagree. I would also explain the significance of the qualification in the book title "for gardeners". Why not for botanists? BTW you mention the British Museum and the Natural History Museum in the lead, but they are the same so far as Stearn was concerned. In the 1950s the NHM was called the British Museum (Natural History). Dudley Miles (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Are you starting from Z and going backwards? As the list is so short why not include T?
 * I've already done the T's, and I'm happy to combine the two lists ... Bloom6132, ChrisTheDude, does this work for you?
 * I actually never got the notification (which should happen when one user mentions another). Yes, that's fine with me. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * My mistake. - Dank (push to talk) 01:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I've added the T's to this list, and moved the page. I won't move this review page until I hear back from Hawkeye about how to avoid confusing the FLC bot. - Dank (push to talk) 19:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It might be worth mentioning that in the photo of Burlington House, the Linnean Society is on the left of the entrance. (It is one of three learned societies occupying the west wing of the building and the Linnean Society has the area shown in the photo fronting on to Piccadilly. I have been to lectures at all three.) Maybe a label: "Burlington House in Piccadilly, London. The Linnean Society occupies the area on the left of the entrance."
 * Done.
 * The criteria for inclusion in the list seem a bit vague - e.g. "a few similar names".
 * Happy to tweak the selection criteria (done in this edit) ... I'll make the changes to the list so that reviewers can decide which they like better.
 * Why exclude names derived from people and places?
 * See, for instance, WT:Copyrights. Curating the list in some fashion is an important part of avoiding even a hint of copyright infringement. Also, there are around 400K plant species, so any attempt to create a list of species names that Wikipedians are going to find useful for one purpose or another is going to have to omit some in some non-random way. Also, see the last paragraph of my intro above ... the point of this list is to make botany feel less daunting for readers who have a little background in Latin and Greek. (Alternatively, readers who are more into botany can use that interest to learn something about Latin and Greek roots, knowledge that could help them in a hundred other ways.) If someone ever wants to write a list of species names that honor great botanists, or species names with connections to geography, that would be great ... but if I were writing such lists (I'm not), my approach would be different than the approach here.
 * I think you need to fully explain your criteria for inclusion in the article, and in particular your reasons for excluding names based on people and places and anagrams. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * It would be helpful to have the names of examples the same as the names of plants illustrated. For example, I do not know which species or genus Oncidium varicosum is.
 * Further to this point, I think it should always be clear for each illustration which genus or species is illustratred, which it is not in the case of dandelion, for example. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I think you should indicate which names are species and which genus. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll add a note that genus names are capitalized. When a genus name appears in the list of Examples, it means "click here for a list of examples" (should I say that?) For genera, the captions are meant to serve as additional examples. For species, the captions all come directly from the list (I think). (If that doesn't deal with your objection, then I can remove the few captions that are based on genera.) Thanks kindly for the review! - Dank (push to talk) 15:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I added the explanation that genus names are capitalized ... did you want me to add a column that indicates "G" or "S" as well? - Dank (push to talk) 01:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that the explanation covers it, but you might consider having genus in bold and species in standard if other reviewers agree. If there is room for an extra column without causing problems on some screens, I would rather see the L and Ref headings expanded to the full word. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Okay, in reply to the "vague criteria" point, I clarified the criteria, doublechecked the species (they're fine), and added a bunch of genera. I think we're good to go. - Dank (push to talk) 03:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Dudley, I'll get back to you on this, but it may take a while. I'm not sure if I can stomach adding "wilsonii" and "texana" to what's supposed to be a respectable list of Latin and Greek root words, but it sounds like you're not happy with the list as it stands. But it's entirely possible that botany editors would prefer the expanded list, and I don't mind doing the work if that's what they would prefer. - Dank (push to talk) 18:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean expanding the entries, just the heading as Language instead of L. You say in the paragraph above that L stands for Latin, and many readers will not know that they have to hover over the heading L to find out that it means language in this case, and they will be confused. 20:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose I'm confused, where's A–S? This is a complete failure of criterion 3(a). This does not serve the reader well, you need to be comprehensive before trying to make it featured. I'm also confused about the inclusion criteria: is this just an import of Stearn's book? I can't preview that but I can read Coombes's and Harrison's, and they're just glossaries of genus and species names: the contents are what's encyclopedic, not the fact that a particular author put it in their book. If someone wants to know word meanings, they can use these books, and the book may be notable, but that doesn't mean that this particular set of entries is notable: your DYK hook was "William T. Stearn wrote an influential guide to botanical names?" but this isn't about the book, it's a partial list of entries in the book. And what about items that may be in Coombes or Harrison but not in Stearn? How is this different from a Words defined by Merriam-Webster (N) or Words that Roget provides synonyms for (A-D)? Reywas92Talk 19:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

PresN, I'd like to withdraw this nomination, please and thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 20:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.