Talk:Silphium (genus)

Requested move 28 June 2022

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Silphium (genus). As in Talk:Nasturtium (plant genus), there is a consensus to move somewhere as the current title is ambiguous, but not a real consensus about the best disambiguator, with "plant genus" and "genus" being close contenders. Here, Silphium (genus) seems to have slight preference (among those who explicitly addressed the issue), since no other genus with the same name exists (the insect one is not terribly similar). No such user (talk) 16:41, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

---

Silphium (plant) → Silphium (plant genus) – "(plant)" is insufficient disambiguation, since the extinct Silphium (antiquity) was also a plant. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 07:39, 28 June 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Srnec (talk) 13:33, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support as current title is ambiguous. 68.43.231.28 (talk) 00:36, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  Alternatively, this article could be moved to Silphium (genus) (which is currently a redirect to Silphium). 68.43.231.28 (talk) 14:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  Kevmin had retargetet Silphium (genus) that to the dab page because of an insect genus with the same name. But isn't that genus instead called Silfion? – Uanfala (talk) 14:18, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  Comment The insect genus is spelled Silfion yes, so the redirect could be changed. As a note, the WP:TOL guidelines on disambiguated taxa is to avoid the "Taxon (genus)", if this page is moved, the more appropriate disambig would be "Silphium (Asteraceae)". I do disagree that the plant of antiquity should be placed at Silphium, and have commented on that move as such.--Kevmin § 14:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, I agree disambiguating by family at Silphium (Asteraceae) is better. But see also the related discussion at Talk:Nasturtium (plant)#Requested move 20 June 2022. – Uanfala (talk) 14:31, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Kevmin:, there isn't any TOL guideline to avoid (genus). There have been a couple discussions about disambiguation terms, with no disagreement about avoiding (genus) in the most recent discussion, but that never made it into any guideline or documentation page. There has been a trend to move articles that had (genus); there were about 1000 articles with (genus) disambiguation in 2015, and less than 200 now. There seems to be an open question as to whether (genus) should be avoided when disambiguators such as (plant) remain ambiguous (as in the case of Silphium and Nasturtium), and what disambiguator should be used if (genus) is avoided in these cases. I'll open a thread at TOL about it. Plantdrew (talk) 20:34, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support this or perhaps "Silphium (asters)" or something similar—although many articles use scientific names, the guidelines actually say that the most common names (not necessarily the "common names") are to be preferred, and "asters" is clearer in meaning than "asteraceae", which is a technical term that doesn't specifically refer to this genus. P Aculeius (talk) 03:15, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
• Move away from the old title – the disambiguator "(plant)" doesn't disambiguate at all as the only other topic with the name is also a plant. The new title could be either Silphium (genus) (that's a sufficient disambiguator: "(plant genus)" is unnecessary as there are no other genera with the name) or Silphium (Asteraceae) (disambiguating by the family the genus belongs to; you can't use "(aster)" because Silphium is not an aster). – Uanfala (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  According to our articles, it's in the aster family. "Silphium (sunflowers)" might be more specific, although "Silphium (rosinweed)" might be too specific. P Aculeius (talk) 12:04, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

  Well, all species in e.g. the orchid family are orchids, but this usage is the exception rather than the rule. Asteraceae can be referred to as the aster family, or the daisy family or the sunflower family, but this doesn't mean that asters are daisies are sunflowers are asters. – Uanfala (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

• Move to Silphium (genus) or Silphium (plant genus). (plant) is the disambiguator used for more than 95% of plant genera that require disambiguation, but it is sometimes not sufficiently precise (as in this case). (genus) is mostly used in cases when (plant) isn't precise enough. There are two cases where neither (genus) or (plant) is sufficiently precise (Mahua (moss) (see Mahua) and Calamus (palm) (see Calamus)). (plant genus) could be consistently used in all cases where (plant) isn't precise enough, but I think that option needs to be discussed further at WikiProject Plants. Plantdrew (talk) 02:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• relisting comment there is consensus to change the current title, but currently no consensus for a new title. Pinging all the participants: @Mellohi!, P Aculeius, Kevmin, Uanfala, and Plantdrew: —usernamekiran (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  Silphium (genus) is fine by me. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 19:01, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  Silphium (genus) is okay, since it appears there is no other genus with this name. Srnec (talk) 15:47, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  If the problem is that "plant" is too vague, then "genus" is just as bad—it doesn't even tell readers that it's a plant! It needs to be something that will narrow it down usefully. Plants in this genus are apparently called "rosinweed", and they form part of the sunflower tribe within the aster family. Any of these descriptions would be more helpful as a disambiguator than either "plant" or "genus" (and while we're at it, let's cross off "flower" and "wildflower", since fennel—the likely family for silphium—could also fit in these categories). After due consideration, I suggest, in order of specificity:

• Silphium (rosinweed)
• Silphium (sunflowers)
• Silphium (asters)

Note that "rosinweed" sounds more natural as a collective plural than "sunflower" or "aster", which only have simple plurals. P Aculeius (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Silphium (rosinweed) sounds acceptable to me (the word rosinweed is probably not very widely recognisable, but I think what matters here is that it will be recognisable to the editors searching for this article), though I think Silphium (Asteraceae) is still a bit easier to recognise. Using "asters" is incorrect, while "sunflowers" is misleading (I don't think that common word is really used for all members of the taxonomic tribe). – Uanfala (talk) 11:24, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support the other has 30,401 views compared with only 1,154[[1]] for this one. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.