User talk:Brya

Welcome!

Hello, Brya, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 24 September 2005

Restarting

Archived Brya 08:42, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lebedev

I was looking through the Mikhail Lebedev page and it seems to be vanity and non-notable to me. First of all, there is hardly any information about him on Google. Then, none of the publications seem to be news-worthy and notable. Finally, the scientist does not have many 1st author publications and seems to be non-important in his field. If you agree with me, can you please help me nominate Mikhail Lebedev for deletion? --GoOdCoNtEnT 08:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contact

Brya,

you write As I have been de facto blocked from editing Wikipedia. Please contact me by email so I can help you work it out. I feel that as far as contents of the artcile go, you have at least one point, but it is hard for me to help you here. My english alas is insufficient to "hit the right tone".

TeunSpaans 04:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ICBN Glossary

Where is the Glossary in the ICBN? I only have access to the on-line version, and I can't seem to find the glossary. Thanks, KP Botany 17:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is on page 484-491. I have no idea when it will be online. I expect they want to sell a reasonable amount of books before they do so. Best, Brya 17:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so it's not in the on-line one. Well, there are good sites with the defintions. Still, it would be easier to use on-line with a glossary. Thanks, KP Botany 18:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is in the new one. Actually, I don't know of any good sites with definitions on botanical nomenclature. Best, Brya 20:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, the one newer than the St. Louis Code is out? It's not on the IAPT site links, yet. What is it called? There are actually a number of sites that include glossaries of all the various types and other bits of information for using botanical nomenclature. KP Botany 20:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is out. It is called the Vienna Code. And I have never found a site that was anywhere near reliable on the matter of botanical nomenclature. Best, Brya 20:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I've still been using the St. Louis Code. Thanks. Although I don't doubt you have personally never found a reliable site on botanical nomenclature I do doubt that you've seen them all. I've found quite a bit of useful and accurate and fun information on the web about botanical nomenclature. KP Botany 20:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My user page

Thank you on corrections. I am very glad with your return to Wikipedia. Berton 15:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About block

As you may have noticed, your account has been blocked and you can only edit this talk page. The issues which you had responded to on the WP:TOL talk page are a large part of this as there is some concern that you might be adding invalid and/or speculative material to articles. There also seems to be a considerable clash of personalities involved. If some of these issues can be resolved then I'm sure your account would be unblocked. Specifically, I think people are concerned about some of the APG information you have been using. For instance, you referenced an APG II 'paleodicots' classification, but users searching for such haven't been able to find one. Was this a mistake or do you have a reference? Likewise, various citations of 'APG III' are problematic because no such exists yet and thus any estimation of what one might eventually contain is inherently unverifiable. Hopefully it is still possible to set the past conflicts aside and try to work through these and similar disputes. People disagree... it is natural and inevitable. However, we should usually be able to find some sort of reasonable common ground between what is preferred and what is intolerable. --CBD 00:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Block

For the record I should point out that my contributions are mostly strictly By-The-Book (solidly backed by references) and that this is why they are unpopular. There is a great deal of inaccurate information on botany in wikipedia (the result of quick google searches, sloppy reading and worse). A few editors hate to see their PoV challenged however indirectly and will attack any NPoV article. I have never 'pushed' anything except 1) NPoV, 2) putting in solid references and 3) internal consistency.

APG III

Occasionally I do use a more accessible turn of phrase such as in the case of "APG III" (likely to be published sometime in future). This looked like a useful device as lots of users mistook the APWebsite for the official APG classification (wikipedia is ful of such references). A distinction should be made between APG (1998), APG II (2003) and the APWebsite: these are three different things. Because the APwebsite is most easily accessible online it was most popular. This is not without its dangers as the site is kept up by a single person (very well read and well connected) and is without any official status: also as a webresource it changes very regularly. What is there today may be gone tomorrow. Any reference to it should be explicit and accompanied by the date of consulting it. Well, again as wikipedia was full of mix-ups between the three different systems I put in some work untangling the three. Besides putting in the APG (1998) and APG II pages this is also apparent in Nymphaeales, moving it to a carefully NPoV. Somewhat similar for Dilleniales. In doing this I used the image of "APG III" to reinforce the idea that any usage of these names in connection with APG is quite tentative. The "APG III" is there as a warning sign. Although it should be obvious to anybody who has kept up on plant taxonomy even in a minimal fashion, or even to anybody who reads carefully, that we are dealing with three different systems it is quite clear from the contents of wikipedia that there is a category of users who are neither botanist nor careful readers who would benefit by such an explicit warning sign.

Your thoughts on what APG III is likely to include in Nymphaeales and Dilleniales seem reasonable, but until it actually exists they remain inherently unverifiable. Often reasonable speculation is allowed to pass unchallenged so long as it is described as speculative, but it is technically not in conformity with Wikipedia practice and given the more general controversies is inevitably going to be challenged. If you could find references to someone saying these things in a reliable source then it would be verifiable that those speculations exist... but when you include your own estimations directly there is no 'third party verification' possible. I understand what you are saying about mentioning 'APG III' as a way of indicating that a classification is questionable under the specifics of APG and/or APG II, but may exist in 'general work along APG lines of reasoning' that might be included in a future standard. However, it would be better to attribute this to the website or a particular researcher who supports the classification while noting that it isn't part of a widely used published standard. Failing that any reference to such an informal usage in a citable text or article would do. --CBD 12:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I felt I was being very clear about its speculative character. It was backed each and every time, the very prominent source the AP-Website (taken by the casual user as the gospel of what is in APG) was included explicitly, indicating where it departed from APG II (2003), sometimes also including APG (1998), thus sketching an ongoing development. Also note that these links to the AP-Website were removed by KPBotany so if there is sombebody guilty of removing useful information it is clear who it is. Brya 16:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

palaeodicots

I am afraid I don't quite see why palaeodicots is an issue. This was a page which existed as palaeodicotyledon. I moved this to its correct name and tried to put it in its correct context. It belongs somewhere in the APG universe and I phrased it sloppily when I used the phrase "In the APG system, ...", rather than as "In the APG universe, ...' or in "In molecular plant systematics, ...". However, do note that nobody challenged this sloppines, and I forgot to come back to it to readjust this. I never regarded this item as something which should be in wikipedia, but rather as something that was there and should not be allowed to run loose.

I think the objection raised was just to the appearance of this classification existing in the APG II standard. Your explanation of intending to say that it is sometimes used in conjunction with APG classifications, without being officially part of the standard, seems reasonable and I think there was even a citable instance of that mentioned on the ToL talk page. --CBD 12:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot find any trace of reasonableness on the ToL page. Even after I pointed out that KPBotany's assumption that I created was false, and even after MrDarwin confirmed this, KP Botany repeated his allegations here. Also note that Peta did not retract the wild accusation here, even now. Brya 16:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

APG II

I am not necessarily a fan of APG II, but if wikipedia is going to be using this as a reference, internal consistency is called for. It was clearly acknowledged (here) that the present taxoboxes for angiosperms are wrong (thus every wikipedia-page that uses such a taxobox is spreading misinformation). I do maintain that this wikipedia-only-system of Angiosperm plant taxonomy is original research.

The argument can be made, but I think it is more of a 'work in progress'. Wikipedia is not attempting to define a 'new' classification system, but rather cobbling together classifications from existing systems. If an 'APG III' system which extends AGP classifications to the higher taxa comes out Wikipedia would presumably adopt that and adjust the presentation of the information accordingly. In the meantime the plan seems to be to conform to APG II where possible and then pull in additional information from other systems. Obviously this is kludgy and leaves room for inconsistency and confusion but it does not seem an unreasonable approach under the circumstances. For the average lay person these discrepancies are minor... and any effort to adopt a 'perfect' system of classification would inherently be 'original research'. Wikipedia should never be 'leading the way' in having the most logical/consistent/accurate classifications, but rather 'following in the wake' as others do so. If we do as well as Brittanica that's 'good enough' for an encyclopedia. It wouldn't do for cutting edge research in the field, but it isn't supposed to. For that people should be looking to things like the APG website and the standards. Wikipedia is for 'Joe Bubblegum' who just wants a reasonable answer as to 'what this word means' and 'what type of weed that is'. --CBD 12:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well there are two options other than now used. 1) drop everything out of the taxobox above the level of order. This is more or less what the real taxonomy texts do. 2) Just follow APG II literally. It is quite doable. Brya 16:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standard system

Apparently there is also some confusion regarding a "standard system" for angiosperm taxonomy. It is a basic fact that every taxonomic classification (and for that matter every botanical name) is a PoV, by its very nature. It is a scientific PoV, published in a refereed journal, but a PoV. Thus in referring to any taxonomic placement it is necessary to indicate in what sense a name or classification is used. For example Malvaceae sensu Cronquist is something else as Malvaceae sensu APG, and using just Malvaceae is inadequate: it may be just vague or downright misleading. Thus in using a taxobox it is fundamental that there are two options only: 1) to indicate in each and every taxobox the reference this classification is taken from or 2) to agree on a standard that all taxoboxes follow (even if no more than as a default setting). Using a taxobox with just any old unreferenced taxonomy is downright misleading (and certainly unwikipedian). Thus it is almost inevitable that wikipedia adopts a standard system. It is true wikipedia picked APG II (2003) as its standard well before I came along, but I see no alternative, not until a new overview is published (in a printed source). Brya 12:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The taxoboxes allow an 'authority' to be specified for each classification. Isn't that sufficient to clarify these issues? While 'APG II' may be the target, if a particular classification isn't covered in that system it can still be attributed to a source. --CBD 12:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Basically yes (I personally made a few taxoboxes thus, not on this wikipedia). However, that is only so in theory as nobody actually does so. I have never seen anybody in this wikipedia indicate an authority in a taxobox. It seems very likely that any attempt to do so would be violently attacked (as being against consensus. Berton's Digital Maoisism is a stark image but it is not far off). Brya 16:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration

You should be aware that this block is also being discussed on the requests for arbitration page with an eye towards determining some sort of 'official' position. You could probably be unblocked to comment there if you agreed to refrain from working on the disputed topic (pretty much anything to do with taxonomy) until this is resolved. --CBD 12:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration looks like basically a good idea. Things are badly wrong in the "plant community" with a few users openly engaged in "vandalism, POV pushing, unrepentant editing" and worse, which is then called consensus.

The block, in a middle of a discussion, on a false (not to say fabricated) pretext, of a user who made some forty edits in the past six weeks (mostly on Talk pages) because he is an immediate danger is telling. Some people are very afraid of the facts, indeed. Brya 15:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]