Talk:World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions

Note to editors of plant articles

Information and advice on the use of the scheme within Wikipedia will be found at WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:39, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Levels

I have now provided a list of the WGSRPD levels down to Level 2. There are 369 Level 3 areas, so I think it's not worth listing them all, but I can do so if other editors think this would be a good idea, although there might be a copy-right issue. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:39, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Expansion

I have now substantially expanded the article; the only material missing seems to me to be some critical evaluations of the scheme. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

This is top down, I believe it should be bottom up

Hello Wiki Editors, I believe that we are using this scheme wrongly. I include below a discussion that me and Declangi had around Nypa fruticans. The last paragraph is the one that details my point on this page:

== Tropical Asia is not individual nations ==

Another wiki editor chose to remove such categories as Flora of Cambodia from this page. I appreciate their work, but I disagree with this decision. 

They argue that Flora of Cambodia is a "daughter-category" of Flora of Tropical Asia. 3 points, when I look at the category Flora of Cambodia, it does mention that it is,a sub-category of Flora of Indo-China, which itself is a sub-category of Flora of Southeast Asia, there is no linking to Flora of Tropical Asia. Secondly, when I, as a consumer, look at Flora of Cambodia, I would like to see the flora of Cambodia, not a generalised Flora of the larger region. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Flora of Tropical Asia, the Flora of Indo-China, the Flora of Southeast Asia are generalised categories. They do not acknowledge differences and localisations in the floras of individual regions. Why not just lump everything into a Flora of the World category. By all means let's have regional floras but individual nations flora is important because of regional differences, because of localised interests and as a basic building block for the larger floras. Brunswicknic (talk) 00:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

:This species has a broad distribution throughout tropical Asia and is not confined to Cambodia or Papua New Guinea. Therefore the broad regional category is appropriate and species should not be placed in both child and parent categories. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions#Using the categorization hierarchy for the category scheme in use at WikiProject Plants. Declangi (talk) 00:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I have read the category scheme. Papua New Guinea is not in Asia. Nypa is not in Tropical Southern and Western India, nor in Laos, Tropical Asia apparently does not include China. There is a category of Flora of Cambodia, there is a category of Endemic Flora of Cambodia, the latter applies to endemics, the first to flora shared with other nations. For the reasons given above I strongly disagree with this generalisation of flora across huge regions. In order to see what the Flora of Cambodia is the reader must know to check to not only the categories Endemic Flora and Flora of Cambodia, but also go through every entry in Flora of Indo-China, Flora of Southeast Asia (which is not listed in the above guidelines) and Flora of Tropical Asia in order to see which plants grow in Cambodia. That is ridiculous, readers who want to know the flora of Cambodia should be able to go to Flora of Cambodia. The higher categories should be built from the lower categories, not vice versa. I strongly disagree with the guidelines. 

However, they are guidelines, I will not revert your reversion again, but I doth protest. Thank you for work and your sharing with me, best wishes to you and yours Declangi. Brunswicknic (talk) 00:55, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Brunswicknic: Detailed guidance on how to use the WGSRPD is given at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. If you don't agree, you need to open a discussion at WT:PLANTS, but this guidance reflects a very long held consensus. This talk page is the place to discuss the content of the article, not how the scheme is used within the English Wikipedia.

In summary:

• We do not list every country for organisms that have a widespread distribution. (This applies to animals as well as plants; indeed, for animals there is a stronger consensus that countries are irrelevant.)
• Categories are not list articles; they are used for the defining/core properties of things. That it occurs in Cambodia is not a defining characteristic of a plant which is widespread in Tropical Asia.
• Continuing this point, readers who want to know the flora of Cambodia should be able to go to Flora of Cambodia – indeed, if it is considered sufficiently notable and there are reliable secondary sources, readers who want to know the flora of Cambodia should go to the article "Flora of Cambodia".
• Papua New Guinea is not in Asia – since we use the WGSRPD, all that matters is that 4 Asia-Tropical includes 43 Papuasia which includes NWG New Guinea which includes NWG-PN Papua New Guinea.Peter coxhead (talk) 05:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikilinking

Recent edits have tried to wikilink the names of many of the WGSRPD's divisions. It's important to check very carefully before doing this, as the WGSRPD's definitions do not correspond to many uses of the same name in other sources. For example, its Caribbean includes The Bahamas which are sometimes considered part of the Caribbean and sometimes not. Its definition of Northern America differs from most definitions of Northern America by excluding Mexico, and including The Bahamas and all the Aleutian Islands whether US or Russian. The WGSRPD's "Indo-china" is not the same as Mainland Southeast Asia because the WGSRPD excludes Peninsular Malaysia. In many cases, there is no article in the English Wikipedia that properly covers the WGSRPD division.

The most useful wikilink is often to the flora category, as this includes a map. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)