Talk:Pinus albicaulis

Blue stain fungus

Under threats section it is stated that the Mountain pine beetle spreads blister rust. Should it be Blue stain fungus? --Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit to improve sort order in Category Pinus

I edited this to change the sort order on the page for the Category:Pinus. It had been set to alphabetize under Pine. That might make sense for categories where there are a lot of trees and a few of them are pines; then all the pines group together. But on the page where everything is a pine, it made more sense to alphabetize under Whitebark. 71.126.140.136 (talk) 11:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

Naming conventions

The USGS doesn't capitalise "whitebark pine", so is it correct that this article does? Is there some wikipedia convention? Additionally the capitalisation isn't consistent; sometimes it's "Whitebark pine", therefore something's wrong somewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 01:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Almost all Wikipedia article names are capitalized per the MOS:NAME convention, such as Automobile, even though one would not capitalize that in a sentence, unless it was the first word. There is a special section for botanical article naming conventions at WP:FLORA. —EncMstr (talk) 01:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I wasn't asking about the article name; in the body of this article the tree was referred to variously as "Whitebark Pine" and "Whitebark pine". I don't mind which is considered to be correct, just wanted it to be consistent. Malleus Fatuorum 01:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

To summarize from the WP:FLORA page, "There is currently no consensus regarding capitalization of common names in articles." Nadiatalent (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

But there is surely a consensus that whichever naming convention is adopted be applied uniformly throughout the article. Malleus Fatuorum 15:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, done. I moved all to lowercase since there was no apparent basis for upper case. Still need to fix the title, hence the RM below. Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

In my view, to make these changes BEFORE the RM had concluded was wrong; it prejudges the outcome of the RM. The majority of uses were upper case, so since consistency is the prime principle, it would have been better to have gone this way unless and until the move was agreed. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. Though several editors have expressed a preference for abandoning these names altogether in favor of scientific names, there's clearly consensus for decapitalizing for now. --BDD (talk) 20:41, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• Whitebark Pine → Whitebark pine
• Lodgepole Pine → Lodgepole pine
• Limber Pine → Limber pine
• Knobcone Pine → Knobcone pine
• Jeffrey Pine → Jeffrey pine
• Western White Pine → Western white pine
• Scots Pine → Scots pine

– For reasons hard to track down, the articles named for common names of pine species are capitalized. This is in conflict with most other plant common names, with the advice of MOS:CAPS, and with usage in sources, so I presume this will be uncontroversial. Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid this won't be uncontroversial. My preference for title is Pinus albicaulis>Whitebark pine>Whitebark Pine, and scientific names over common names (regardless of capitalization) for the other nominated moves. By my count, there are 237 articles in Category:Pinus, and there are 40 articles about a pine species with a title of the form "xxx Pine". So there are ~33 articles (some of which are disambiguations) beyond the 7 nominated here which have "Pine" capitalized. I'd rather see pine not capitalized, but I think WP:FLORA should apply and a large number of articles about pine species should be moved to the scientific name. Certain common names for various pines should be DAB/SIAs for multiple pine species which share a common name.

By my count, Category:Pinus has 237 children. 46 are scientific names redirecting to common names. 71 are articles about species titled by scientific name. 57 are common names redirecting to scientific names. 61 are articles titled by common name (some of which are DAB/SIAs, and some of which cover pine related topics that go beyond particular species (e.g. Pine nut). 46+71+57+61=235, so I screwed up my count somewhere, but pine species are most often titled by scientific names, as the guideline at WP:FLORA prefers. Plantdrew (talk) 05:35, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's keep this RM to the capitalization, and assume that it will apply to all the pines that are currently at capitalized common names (I see about 24 more at the category page), and probably other trees if others are this way (some of the Pinyons were, for example, but not Douglas fir; and some pines are already at lowercase common name). Changing to scientific names may be a good idea, too, but probably needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, as I read the flora guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

• Several points:
  • I agree with Plantdrew; they should, by default, be moved to the scientific name.
  • You can't simply assert that capitalization of common names is inconsistent with sources. For Scots Pine, for example, all the UK floras I possess capitalize both words; the list of plant names produced by the Botanical Society of the British Isles capitalizes both names. The capitalization of the common names of plants is inconsistent in many other groups than pines, often because it correctly reflects the sources (almost all articles about Australian plants, including FA and GA ones, capitalize the English name in the text; see Category:Banksia taxa by common name). Capitalization of the English names of plants is disputed and provided the article is consistent one way or the other, to avoid disputes and upsets, the best solution is to accept variation, as we do in other areas.
  • There's no point in changing the capitalization of the title if the text is not changed. Some editors have a habit of randomly de-capitalizing one use in the text of an otherwise consistent article, which degrades rather than improves quality. The same would be the case if the title were changed and the text left alone.

Peter coxhead (talk) 06:42, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Several of these had very inconsistent case in the articles, and I moved them toward consistency at lowercase after verifying in sources that they usually showed up as lowercase in sources. Scots pine was the only non-American tree I added, and I did look at some sources, but didn't count when I saw that lowercase was common enough; perhaps in England they do this one differently? No, n-grams says it's overwhelmingly lower case even in British English: [1]. Dicklyon (talk) 07:03, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

However, for me the issue is not just how common the forms are in all books; it's also how the name is styled in the "official" list. The same argument applies to bird names; unlike plants, these are usually (just) more commonly capitalized than not in American English but not in British English. But one of the arguments in favour of capitalizing the English names of birds is that there is an official list which does this. However there has been a strong trend in British English (perhaps less so in American English?) to de-capitalize all sorts of words which were previously capitalized; I guess I'm just becoming old-fashioned. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from, Peter coxhead, but WP:COMMON disagrees with you on the importance of official sources. Red Slash 21:30, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

But then how do you determine what is the common name of a species if not by using an authoritative source? "Whitebark pine" appears to be a "fake" common name, obtained by translating the Latin epithet into English. Why is this a better title than the scientific name? Peter coxhead (talk) 23:43, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The tree obviously had its Latin name made up to refer to its white bark as this 1863 article explains. In this 1879 article it was called "white-barked pine" or "white pine" and was listed among the most important trees in B.C. (which is where I'm editing from today, coincidentally). Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think they should be at the scientific name. But, why bother discussing this? The views of the participants will be discounted as in Talk:Douglas_fir#Tally_discussion. Just ask Salix to make the moves. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:05, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • They should be at the scientific name only--and I mean only--if the WP:COMMON name is inaccurate/imprecise or if the Latin name is actually more common than the name "Whitebark pine" (for instance). Red Slash 21:30, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

More common where? All over the web? In the Wikipedia book corpus, which includes every kind of book? Or more common in reliable sources? Almost by definition reliable sources use the scientific name; a source which did not use the scientific name at all would be very unlikely to be judged reliable. What "more common" is increasingly coming to mean is a populist approach which may be right for articles about celebrities but isn't for the more serious, scientific part of Wikipedia. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:43, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support to all per MOS:CAPS. I remember tons, tons, tons, tons, tons, tons, tons, tons, tons of long, dull debates on capitalization at various non-bird animal articles. But our normal caps rules held to day. They should here, as well. Red Slash 21:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "our normal caps rules held to day". As I pointed out above, there are many plant articles, including FA and GA ones, which use capitals for English names (I suggested looking at Category:Banksia taxa by common name if you missed it). Peter coxhead (talk) 23:43, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Banksia are named for Sir Joseph Banks, which is why they're capitalized (per the normal caps rules, one might say). Dicklyon (talk) 00:07, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Umm, what I meant was "held the day", oops. But I daresay the plant articles with capitalized names are so named in error. Red Slash 03:45, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, strangely enough, most of the few capitalized common plant names are not even unique plants or "official" names. Like Kerosene Bush and Strawberry Tree, which each refer to several different plants. I'm working on case fixing more... Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: it might or might not be appropriate to capitalize "Banksia" used as a common name, but that doesn't justify the use of capitals for the whole common name, as is done throughout the FA articles on Banksia species.

@Red Slash: plant articles, particularly FA and GA ones, are mainly titled by the scientific name as per the policy of WP:PLANTS, but it's not right to assume that the capitalization of English plant names in the text is always a mistake. It's often a deliberate adoption of the normal practice in the reliable sources for the country/region in which the plant occurs. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:54, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support If this discussion is to be strictly about capitalization, move these to lower case "pine" titles. I object to "official" common names which mandate particular forms of capitalization or hyphenation. Standard writing in English avoids most capitals and hyphens. If an article about a plant is titled by common name, it should be in the form that is most likely to be searched for (or wikilinked). The general public is not aware of the arbitrary rules for "official" common names, and the specialist population aware of these rules is comfortable with scientific names. Truly common forms of names are often used in contexts where the scientific name is not included. "Official" forms of common names are almost always immediately preceded or followed by the scientific name. Plantdrew (talk) 04:58, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Lot's of assertions there, Plantdrew! Please indulge me in giving a long response to this point.

Many non-scientists who are seriously interested in plants (and other organisms) are uncomfortable with Latin names. They find them hard to pronounce and hard to remember. So organizations which want to promote the study of "their" taxa have generated lists of English names. These are not true "common" names, but artificial English names. In the cases I know well (British vascular plants, British bryophytes, British fungi, British lepidoptera) the artificial English names been carefully designed to show relationships whee possible, e.g. having a two-part structure corresponding to genus and species. But most importantly they have been designed to be unique, so that an amateur reporting an occurrence of a species using such an English name is as precise in their identification as if the Latin name had been used (these days, particularly for fungi, the Latin names change much faster than the artificial English names!).

As soon as you depart from the prescribed style for these artificial names, you raise doubts as to whether the name is being used in the manner intended, and so introduce imprecision. Now if the scientific name is given as well, there's no problem. But if it isn't, there is a problem. As someone who maintains a checklist of organisms for a UK National Nature Reserve, I'm happy to receive records using the "official" common names from people whose identifications I can trust. What concerns me is people using "random" English names picked up from sources like Wikipedia. By all means give all well attested common names for a species, but where there is a standard common name, this should be given in the form the source intended, and not arbitrarily altered by a Wikipedia editor.

Since I don't believe that such names should be used as article titles, this point only applies to the point in the text where the English names are given. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:54, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that makes perfect sense, to mention "official" names, caps and all, with official sources, when they apply. As with the Latin names, we need to be sure not to mix those up with common names, which are lowercase except for proper name parts that they include. But none of that is at issue here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:22, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree to that extent! What is at issue here is whether the moves should be to the scientific name. The default position for a plant article is summarized at Wikipedia:PLANTS#Plant article naming conventions and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora)#Scientific versus common names. I can't see that any of these articles should ever have been at the English name; the reasons for not using the scientific name don't appear to apply, so moving to the sentence case English name would be to make another mistake. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

• Up until this evening I would have supported...now I am not so sure given the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Lower_case_for_English_plant_names - agree with everyone who says they should all be at scientific name. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Consensus for moving?

I didn't see no consensus, and WP:Plants supports leaving a plant at a scientific name, which is where this was. Famartin (talk) 03:31, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree --- the scientific name follows the WP:FLORA naming scheme. If User:Red Slash wants to move it back to the common name, I think that is a controversial move, and should be a requested move. User:Hike395 07:52, 11 August 2013

I agree too. Moving away from the scientific name requires a very clear consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:39, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Me too - thankfully it is at proper place now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:35, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia works by WP:CONSENSUS. The long-term title was in English, not Latin, and then a requested move duly closed by BDD kept it in English. If you disagree, WP:Move review is open. Or you can file another move request--both are valid options, but ignoring the consensus close is definitely not something we do here at Wikipedia! Red Slash 02:17, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The last RM, barely 2 months ago, said Whitebark pine. If someone thinks the latin name is better, start another RM. Dicklyon (talk) 03:02, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Dick --- you restricted the discussion in that RM by saying "Let's keep this RM to the capitalization". In that RM, users Plantdrew, Peter Coxhead, Walter Siegmund, and Cas Liber all supported using the scientific name, some citing WP:FLORA. I agree with them, and apparently so did User:Famartin, who executed a move to the scientific name. Now, Red Slash is explicitly saying that RM showed consensus to support use of the common name. That does not match my reading of the discussion, above.

Yes, it was restricted to caps. Another RM should then have been opened by those who wanted the scientific name, because the relative merits and support for that were not up for discussion before. If there's a consensus as you say, it should be easy. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

As much as I think a new RM is pointless bureaucratic process, the page has been move protected. I will start an RM, below. —hike395 (talk) 03:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Later: two things to note:

1. I'm not sure about Limber pine vs. Pinus flexilis. My reading of that article is that "Limber pine" can refer to either Pinus flexilis or Pinus reflexa. If we want articles at scientific names, shouldn't we then split that article into two species articles? I'm not a botanist, so I don't know what is the best way to proceed. My RM will just be for Whitebark pine to move to Pinus albicaulis. I will leave it to other editors to figure out what to do with Limber pine.
2. Last time I tried to start a second RM on the same page as the first, the RM bot broke and I made a bunch of useless edits trying to get the RM bot to work. If I need to do so again, I apologize in advance for making a mess. —hike395 (talk) 04:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Requested move to scientific name

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved per request. There does not at present appear to be a consensus to overrule WP:FLORA for this article. Favonian (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

---

Whitebark pine → Pinus albicaulis – WP:FLORA is the guideline that governs the naming of plant articles. It states Scientific names are to be used as article titles in all cases except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany; e.g. rose, apple, watermelon. The whitebark pine is a relatively rare pine with no economic or agricultural use. Therefore, it should be titled under its scientific name Pinus albicaulis —hike395 (talk) 04:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• support move to scientific name - loads of plants at them. Makes for conformity and unambiguity. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support move to scientific name as per WP:FLORA and the reasons given there. In addition, the English name used is not a genuinely "common" name; it's simply a translation of the scientific name. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support move to scientific name for reasons already given above. Famartin (talk) 07:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support Eric ^talk 12:51, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support If this move is successful, the first new info the person who types in "Whitebark pine" will learn about it is that it has a scientific name. I don't suppose anyone with the ability to peck out the letters spelling out the common name is too dumb to figure out that this is how science deals with species. But I do think, like Peter coxhead, that some simply don't like that, which gives me a somewhat queasy feeling. Hamamelis (talk) 03:15, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – per recognizability, mostly; see book usage. Dicklyon (talk) 16:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per recognizability, naturalness, precision, and consistency. Ignore WP:FLORA per WP:IAR (the good reason to invoke IAR here is BECAUSE WP:FLORA flies in the face of policy).

  There can be no question about recognizability, especially since it means "name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize". Naturalness essentially means using the name most commonly used in reliable sources, which is consistent with the vast majority of our titles. WP:PRECISION is met because there is exactly one topic with an article on WP that is associated with "Whitebark pine". --B2C 16:52, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose because in this situation the English-language names are unambiguous, natural, recognizable and clear. Also, I'm pretty sure WP:USEENGLISH is a good idea. (Oh, hey! It's a pine with white bark! That's recognizable if a reader on the English Wikipedia doesn't speak Latin!) Red Slash 22:40, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support Perhaps those who favor "whitebark pine" can explain why that name is better than whitestem, alpine whitebark, pitch, scrub or creeping pine.[2] Many think that the common name they prefer is universal, recognizable, natural and precise. They cannot all be right. Moreover they often cannot agree that a common name should be capitalized or hyphenated. These conflicts are avoided with the scientific name. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Per reasons given by B2C. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:36, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nom, WP:FLORA, and Wsiegmund. The scientific name is unambiguous, whereas this plant has multiple vernacular names. And no, the scientific name is not a foreign phrase - it's the precise name of the taxon that scientists, horticulturalists, or people consulting some of the most popular guides on a hike would come to know it as. To the closing admin: don't let the negative comments about WP:FLORA influence you. It has been a standard guideline built around the article title criteria for years and was created to end disputes about capitalization, hyphenation, and move wars on vernacular names that have strong ties to different countries. Because we have the precision of the scientific name available as an option for a title when vernacular names are ambiguous or there are many of them, it should be preferred, among other reasons. Rkitko ^(talk) 03:00, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support There are too many vernacular names - enough that it's likely that most people coming to this article are not going to see a title that matches what they call it. That is one of the reasons we have articles at their scientific name, per WP:FLORA. Rkitko does a better job explaining this, so I'll add "per Rkitko". First Light (talk) 15:44, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Comment For now all I can say is to refer to the recent RMs/split re Pseudotsuga - Douglas-fir vs Douglas fir. That the Whitebark pine isn't as .... culturally/economically significant might weigh against any influence from points raised in that discussion...Skookum1 (talk) 07:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
• Question I have always wondered why WP:COMMONNAME doesn't seem to apply to plants and many animals. I see a slight carve out in WP:FLORA: ...except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany but that seems to be an omission of applying the naming rule consistently—perhaps due to lack of supporters rather than one which makes systematic sense. The Flora guideline is not particularly persuasive or convincing. Can someone enlighten me? —EncMstr (talk) 08:41, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the reasoning laid out in WP:FLORA is self-explanatory. I'll copy it here for reference:

"The guiding principle of this guideline is to follow usage in reliable sources. In the vast majority of cases, this will be the current scientific name. This is because the vast majority of plants are of academic interest only to botanists, and botanists almost invariably use scientific names in their published works."

If you look up various plants, you overwhelmingly run into the scientific name. Many plants have multiple common names and even share some common names, but generally one scientific name. Famartin (talk) 08:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It's also very important to notice that WP:COMMONNAME is often mis-used (I'm not saying that EncMstr is mis-using it). It's treated as the criterion for choosing an article title when it's only an expanded explanation of one of the five criteria to be applied when choosing an article title. The main problem with the English names of plants is that they regularly fail precision. The other issue is consistency. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for making this point, Peter. Eric ^talk 12:51, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps this isn't part of the "vast majority" then. I'm getting more hits for the common name in this case from Google, Google Books, and Google Scholar, even with -wikipedia in there. FLORA would be well served to show some evidence for such broad claims, to avoid making titling policy based on mere assumptions. --BDD (talk) 15:06, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Titling policy should not be, and is not, based on mere assumptions. However, counting Google hits is a dangerous game unless done with great care (as I have found to my cost in the past when quoting them), since you need to be sure that the hits are reliable sources and are referring to the correct species. Another problem is that older sources have been scanned by Google and then the text recovered by OCR. This is far more likely to misinterpret scientific names than English names, since the Latin words aren't in the OCR system's dictionary. As an example, if you do a Google Scholar search for "whitebark pine -albicaulis" you'll immediately see sources with "alhicaulis", "al- bicaulis", etc.

Even if it could be shown that the overwhelming majority of reliable sources use the English name and not the scientific name in this case, this would at best show that two of the five criteria in WP:AT are met. The guidance set out in WP:FLORA is based on long experience of the ambiguity of English names in an international context. Such a name must satisfy precision (and there is also consistency). Peter coxhead (talk) 16:05, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Peter, I do appreciate how you use the concept of "precision" here, as meaning more than what User:Born2cycle keeps trying to hold it to (which is nothing but article namespace collision avoidance). But in this case, isn't whitebark pine equally precise? Or is there another species that goes by that same name? And what about recognizability? The scientist name is only recognizable to a small subset of those people who are familiar with the whiteback pine, while the common name is familiar to many more (I'm assuming based on book usage). Consistency could go either way, since plant naming already allows a mix of common and scientific names. Dicklyon (talk) 16:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

@Dicklyon. Maybe because I'm an IT professional I rate both unambiguous naming and consistency of naming very highly. If you look at Category:Pinus you'll see that (by my count) there are currently 108 articles on pine species, of which 41 are at an English name and 67 are at the scientific name. (I'm ignoring the subcategory Category:Pinus of China because there seems to be some improper overlap, but the ratio there is 6:13). Some of those at the English name are disputed and may well end up at the scientific name, but let's assume that the overall ratio doesn't change because of this. New articles are more likely to be added at the scientific name since rarer species tend to be written up later and often don't have an English name – certainly not one in common use. So when all pines are covered I'd guess that if current editing behaviour continues about 2/3 will be at the scientific name and 1/3 at an English name. How does this help readers? They have no way of predicting in advance whether the title will be the scientific name (most likely) or the English name (less likely).

The articles can't all be moved to an English name because many species of pine either don't have an English name or don't have one which is sufficiently unambiguous to serve as an article title. They could all be moved to the scientific name, which in my view would be better. If someone knows an English name for a pine, the relevant article can always be found by searching for this, which will either re-direct to the article or to a disambiguation page or to a set article page.

All the arguments above apply even more forcefully to plant articles as a whole. About 400,000 species are studied by botanists and so come under WP:FLORA. As more and more articles are added to Wikipedia, a higher and higher proportion of articles will be at the scientific name, since no other name will exist. (The same is true for other groups with many species, e.g. most kinds of insect.) What is gained by having a small proportion of species articles at those English names which can be shown to satisfy WP:AT appropriately for an international encyclopaedia?

It's clear that using English names can and does lead to confusion. Species of both the genus Lysichiton and the genus Symplocarpus are called "skunk cabbages". Flowers of the latter genus are able to produce heat; flowers of the former are not. All over the web you will find statements that plants such as Lysichiton americanus (the "western skunk cabbage") melt their way through snow, which is completely false, the authors having been confused by the use of the same English name for both genera.

The case is different for those plants used as food items, where the primary interest is the food, not the plant. Even here, using English names has caused problems. For example, to my surprise when I started editing the article, banana turns out to be a somewhat problematic title – the difference between a "banana" and a "plantain", which is quite clear in Britain at least, turns out to be highly country-specific and thus if "banana" excludes "plantain" the term is confusing to a substantial proportion of readers.

The duty of an encyclopaedia is to give accurate information. This requires the topic of an article to be absolutely clear. For plants, this is best achieved in most cases, as WP:FLORA explains, by using the scientific name. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:11, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that consistency is such a big deal, especially in a situation like this where moving one English name to Latin further imbalances an approximately balanced choice, but doesn't lead to actual consistency. I do agree that common English names should be avoided where there is real ambiguity. It's not clear to me that this is one of those, even though the species has other common names for some varieties. There's never any need for anyone (reader or editor) to be able to guess what the title will be, as long as the title they use for a search or a link is precise enough and we do our job with redirects. Dicklyon (talk) 22:34, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I suspect we won't agree about this, but I'd like to make one further new point. The title tends to determine how the article text is written; if the English name is used as the title, it's then used throughout the text. If there really is a strict 1:1 relationship between the scientific name and the English name chosen, it's ok. If not, given the way that stuff in Wikipedia gets copied all over the web, information gets attached to another plant with the same English name. (I have an example of this which I can't find at the moment.) This may be one of the few plants where the English name is a strict identifier (because it's actually a translation of the scientific name); if so, it's very much an exception. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:46, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all for explaining. I can't say I am overwhelmed with seeing the light. But I have changed my mind from being 10% in agreement with Flora to perhaps 50%. —EncMstr (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It's true that many of the pine species are at common names, but probably 97% of plants are at scientific names, and maybe 70% have no recognised common name. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

One of the things that puzzles me is why image uploaders are able to cope with the fact that Wikimedia Commons is entirely organized around scientific names, yet readers of the encyclopaedia are supposed to be unable to do so. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

On Commons, I think it helps that it's an international environment, so the utility of using a universal unique name is more apparent to more users. But I've found it can be tricky to apply logic on WP, as evidenced by two recent hopeless quests to get editors to keep entry terms in the singular (Vikings and Cistercians). Eric ^talk 21:25, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, the more I've edited Wikipedia, the more I've realized that "I don't like it" often matters more than logic or rational argument, and scientific names are one of the things that some editors just don't like. However, in WP:PLANTS we seem to manage to decide things through (relatively) calm and sensible discussion! Peter coxhead (talk) 22:19, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the opposes registered above have anything to do with I don't like it. They are based on title criteria (in one of those rare cases were B2C and I are on the same side, but with somewhat different reasons, including opposing views of precision). On uploaders versus readers, please review 1% rule (Internet culture). Dicklyon (talk) 22:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm certainly not accusing anyone here, but I've participated in many discussions about whether articles should be at the English or the scientific name, and I have the strong impression that "I don't like it" is a major factor in opposing WP:FLORA. As for the 1% rule, in an encyclopaedia it's the responsibility of the 1% and the 9% to provide accurate information to the 90%, which doesn't mean being limited to what they knew before they started reading an article. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't accuse you of operating in bad faith at all, Peter coxhead but I think your hypothesis of motive is wrong. I think WP:USEENGLISH is more likely the rationale. (And yes, Dicklyon, one thing that made me smile when coming to this discussion was the fact that you and Born2cycle are both in agreement with me on it--wow, I feel like I should go buy some lottery tickets and see if the luck continues ) Red Slash 22:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:USEENGLISH is not the rationale at all as the scientific name is not a foreign term but an exact taxonomic "address" of what the organism is. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I can only say that citing USEENGLISH in this context strikes me as utterly irrelevant, and hence silly. Scientific names are the standard terminology of plant science, horticulture and gardening. To discourage them is a bit like saying that we shouldn't use precise scientific or engineering terms in articles on these subjects because ordinary people don't understand them. To write good articles at an encyclopaedic level requires the use of the proper terminology. We do readers no service by pretending otherwise. It's frustrating to many of us trying to improve Wikipedia's coverage of plants to have to constantly defend one of the main "tools of the trade".

Consider articles about music. Should we not have articles with titles like Glissando because "it's not English"? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Re Red Slash's comment of "(Oh, hey! It's a pine with white bark! That's recognizable if a reader on the English Wikipedia doesn't speak Latin!)" ... This logic is oversimplified, and stands up only selectively. Pinus bungeana is also a pine often having very "white"-ish bark, but is known most commonly as "lace-bark pine"; but its bark doesn't really resemble lace except in its whiteness (to me), and I think the Latin translation (not used as a common name in this way, for this species, to my knowledge) would be something like "pine of Bunge". There are more than likely other pine species with bark that could be considered white as well. Hamamelis (talk) 08:48, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Web searches show that Pinus bungeana is quite often called white-barked pine, as is Pinus peuce, but these commonly used names seem to be difficult to find citations for to fit our technical use of the term common name. I'd argue that in common English, "whitebark pine" is therefore ambiguous, because "whitebark" and "white-barked" are confusible and interchangeable. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:57, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you hear what you're saying? Whitebark pine is ambiguous because some other trees are called White-barked pine? Give it up. Dicklyon (talk) 03:16, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

That's not very nice. If anything, the people who are losing by a ratio of 2 to 1 ought to give it up by now ;) Famartin (talk) 04:55, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I meant give up that line of argument, not your quest to use scientific names for fauna on WP. I agree it's probably a lost cause to keep anything at its common name. Dicklyon (talk) 05:24, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, what's wrong with it? I think making sure people can find the articles that they're looking for is at the heart of this discussion.
As to the so-called 'quest', it is challenged ad nauseum, even when ambiguity in common names for plants is more the rule rather than the exception, at least in the English language. Hamamelis (talk) 08:51, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Scrub pine, pitch pine, etc.

Walter Siegmundd asked, Perhaps those who favor "whitebark pine" can explain why that name is better than whitestem, alpine whitebark, pitch, scrub or creeping pine. Looking at book n-grams, it's clear that "pitch pine" is more common, and "scrub pine" is pretty common. But Pitch pine usually refers to Pinus rigida, and Scrub pine to Pinus virginiana; they are not common as alternative names for Whitebark pine, and neither are the others. That's why we don't consider them as possible alternative names for the article. It's not complicated. Dicklyon (talk) 21:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't know how one best breaks this down. The book n-grams tool is potentially useful (and fun to use, so thanks, Dicklyon, for helping know of its existence), but how do we parse the statistics? The n-grams tool is case sensitive, and I'd argue that what is complicated is how we interpret its multiple findings. I do know that any statistician worth their salt would tell us that, especially depending on how and where the questions are framed and/or asked, methodology used, etc., that all outcomes are subject to multiple interpretations. It would be helpful to have more editors with statistics interpretation experience (which, perhaps, Dicklyon has, I don't know) weigh in on this. Hamamelis (talk) 23:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I am experienced enough to know that it's easy to lie with statistics – but even easier to lie without them! The book usage stats tell you a little; just how often these terms are used, not which ones are used for which species; for that, you can follow the links to the books and sample and few and form your own impressions (or test your hypotheses, if you're a statistician). I quickly found enough to answer Walter's question that way. Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Peace Brother Dicklyon! For the record, I wasn't insinuating at all that you or anyone was lying with statistics. The interpreting of statistics can be used validly to persuade people of various things, including opposite sides of an argument. I think that most people using statistics to argue their point believe that they are actually right, and that the statistics back them up. It is up to those who disagree with them to see if they find problems with how the statistics are being represented, or admit that they were fairly represented. Speaking for myself alone, I'm not persuaded that the n-gram you linked to demonstrates what you purport it does, because I think it is incomplete and doesn't take into account enough factors. As you say, it 'tells you a little'. That is why I said it 'would be helpful [to me, at least, and I think others] to have more editors with statistics interpretation experience … weigh in on this', especially a statistician! Hamamelis (talk) 08:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Pinus albicaulis/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This seems to be the tree that is being attacked by the Western Pine Beetle. If so this tree must have presence beyond the US which gets little mention here.

Last edited at 05:08, 14 July 2013 (UTC). Substituted at 20:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)