Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Brya

It is regrettable that MPF interpreted my comments to mean that I left Wikipedia as a result of Brya's edits. I have found Brya intractable, uncooperative, arrogant and extremely frustrating but my frustration with numerous editors (not just Brya) was but one of many reasons for my absence from Wikipedia, time being the major one. MrDarwin 01:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, sorry! I'll remove that, then - MPF 08:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Argument twisting

Even in his rebuttal of other people's edit, Brysa is utterly incapable to comprehend either the spirit or the letter of WP:OWN.

The policy, as well as every single edit page you went through in your edit warring, Brya, extremely clearly state: If you don't want your material to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it. While, whenever Wikipedia itself is divided on a topic (such as american/british spelling), it is recommended to leave an article in its starting convention, as long as it is internally consistent, you have clearly been going against a wikipedia-wide consensus by insisting on italics.

You claim that the ISBN removalat Ghillean Prance was a side effect, but you yourself are clearly writing in this edit "omitting irrelevant ISBN number from dubious source". You clearly were aware of the presence of this ISBN.

You are claiming that MPF's mere adding of headers and removal of italics, both of which conform to established guidelines, are "attacking" your article, and thus you are clearly violating WP:AGF. And even if he did attack your articles, you made absolutely no attempt at any time to discuss with him. He had to approach you and you still did not answer until I stepped in and insisted both party justify their reverts with arguments citing from wikipedia policies and guidelines, something you te to do.

In adition, you are twisting words to make established guidelines and policies conform to your ideas. You say;

However there is no clear agreement on anything. All those who contributed are interested in animals and give cursory attention to animals. The whol thing is poorly thought out. There is a noteworthy remark Wikipedia:Naming_conventions under 2.2

Scientific names are always written in italics."

And yet the Scientific name (or rather binomial nomenclature, to which it redirects) page clearly states that this refers to species names.

I could go on, but right now I have a bus to catch. 207.96.237.98 22:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

the above was posted by myself, I though I was logged in. Circeus 00:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

A miscellaneous note worth making is that it is true that anybody entering an article must expect to have this "mercilessly edited", but this does not mean that this can be reversed as meaning that mercilessness is a good idea. On the opening page Wikipedia:About it says anybody can edit here provided this is done to an appropriate standard ("You are welcome to add further information, cross-references, or citations, so long as you do so within Wikipedia's editing policies and to an appropriate standard"). Anybody making an edit should be self-aware, i.e. conscious of his abilities and limitations. Self governance is a basic principle of wikipedia. In only few cases mercilessness is called for, and in those cases an editor should be well equipped indeed to improve the wikipedia article: he should be reasonably knowledgeable of the subject matter, have in-depth knowledge of the field in general (including terminology and usages), he should have really good editing skills, etc. Without the appropriate skills and knowledge required, which will be evident in the content added during the edit, a merciless carrying through of alterations amounts to what these days is fashionably called "terrorism". Brya 16:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

1. There are many ways to determine "reasonably knowledgeable", etc. Self-evaluation is one method. I suspect most Wikipedians self-evaluate themselves as being competent to make the edits they make, but it is clear that other Wikipedians may have different ideas about the competency of that person based on the edits. Another method is "appeal to authority": "I earned a degree in whatever from the University of Somewhere," "So-and-so said it in his seminal publication," "This specific rule trumps everything else." Authority is always useful, and citation is the best authority of all, but even experts can disagree. A third method is to evince in-depth knowledge through discussion of the issues. I'm reminded of an old saying, "Never try to teach a pig to sing," but sometimes even a pig can learn to hum a tune, and sometimes a pig is really a Pavarotti. I think the current discussion going on here, in which Brya is a participant, is a good example of how this works. All of us have our viewpoints, and I imagine each of us can find errors in the posts of others (I certainly can), but (a) it clarifies for all the participants what the real issues are, and (b) it moves toward a useful and robust consensus.
2. I wonder whether "terrorism" has become the new Godwin's Law.--Curtis Clark 16:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Other comments

1. The entire beginning of brya's comment up to "nomenclature" is complettely unelatd to the behavior that is being discussed that is, blatant disregard of guidelines and at least 1 policies.
2. Discussng the issues at tautonymy, he writes User:SB Johnny had just stepped into an edit war on the side of the aggressor and was actively continuing the edit war. but he fails to realize that it takes two to edit war.
   • The talk pages of Talk:Tautonym and Talk:Tautonymy shows that at least 3 other editors are actively disagreeing with him on the issue of whether the terms ought to be considered distinct.
3. brya deleted as much information than he added in Loranthaceae. MPF showed interest in incorporating your information, but you refused any further edit to the page. You have provided no reason for removing the list of genera beyond "red links are not useful", something clearly frowned on in Wikipedia:Editing policy: whatever you do, try to preserve information. these links will eventually be filled.
4. on italics in botanical name and leitneriales, I have already explained everything about current wikipedia style (stated in the MOS itself, as you kind enough to point) and consensus, all you which you thoroughly disregarded. And I have already talked above about your WP:AGF isues with this very response.
5. In Misodendraceae, I fail to see how an edit that does not even alter any factual information present in te article can be considered "attacking". MPF did not even alter the taxobox's struture. I will refer you yet again to WP:OWN.
6. In Viscum album, your revert removed verifiable and factual information, and was properly unacceptable. If you want to tackle "taxonomical clutter", I suggest you have a try at editing Banksia spinulosa.
7. It is not the page starter who must be followed but the first major contributor. There is a point where a subsequent contributor becomes the first major contributor. It is all relative.
   • Again, I refer you to WP:OWN and WP:NAME.

Circeus 03:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not see that is will do me much good to go into this. Still a few points:

1. While it may take two to dance, a war can be very easily started from one side. Many wars are unilateral.
2. As your position is based to a cconsiderable extent on your self-proclaimed expertise on the typesetting of scientific names it is shocking to see that you do not even know what a scientific name is.
3. Your position that a change in italics by MPF is not an alteration while my restoring proper italics is anathema is incomprehensible. Brya 12:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I assert that a change in italics is hardly an "attack" on the article and that it hardly warrants a revert war, especialy as this one intended to conform to various style guides. I have not "[self-]proclaimed expertise on the typesetting of scientific names," but I do know what is the wikipedia style regarding this, a style that you actively disregard. Circeus 12:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Tautonym(y)

Although I agree that the use of the term in botanical and zoological nomenclature differs (primarily because tautonyms are rejected in ICBN and not in ICZN), I find it astonishing that two articles should be maintained. It seems that it would serve Brya's ostensible aims of maintaining the distinction to actually make that distinction in a single article.--Curtis Clark 03:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Two points

1. In an earlier version I had included an extra point of difference. This was edited out by another user who preferred to have a straight version dealing only with tautonym in the botanical sense, without too much attention for the differences. This was not my idea, but there is some logic in this as most users will be interested in only animals or only plants, and will want to read only in what they are interested in. They don't care how it is in the other realm. Anybody interested in the differences can zip back and forth between the two items. That is what links are for.
2. A prime reason for the split (aside for the entirely different terminology and basic structure) is that I would be uncomfortable explaining the differences in detail. I am only really well familiar with the botanical version. The zoological usage is not something I want to deal with. Even the three kinds of tautonomy mentioned in the ICZN are too much for me, let alone the informal usage. Splitting gives a clean item on botanical nomenclature and an incomplete item on zoological nomenclature. This looks preferable to me than a single incomplete item dealing with both. This way the user has at least some bit of reliable information. Brya 16:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

To me, that sounds a lot like "I'll circumscribe articles by the stuff I know and understand." I've seen portions of articles tagged as stubs, in need of fact-checking and peer-review, and many other tags that can also be applied to entire articles.--Curtis Clark 21:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I would not call that user friendly. Brya 12:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Response

Brya has misjudged my motivations here... I don't consider edit wars to be a big hoot. See talk page on Tautonym... there was already frustration by other editors long before I came across it, including removal of the quite-relevant "see also" link to list of tautonyms. Had I been interested in endlessly edit-warring, I would not have opened the RfCs (there is also an RfC on that article).

I got involved with this because, after coming across some of "his" pages and projects and noting the warring and his blatant dismissal of anyone else working on "his" articles (see here), that I looked into his contribs and saw the extent of the problem. SB Johnny 13:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I cannot tell for sure what your motivations are. I can only go by the evidence. I will readily admit that I was not aware of you before this cropped up and that we have no history.

Still your actions are beyond my understanding. When decisions are to be made some people look only at the arguments brought forward and decide in favor of what looks nicest. This is how the really bad mistakes are made. I have always found it that people can make sound decisions only if they personally connect with reality, usually by looking things up. As you, even today, made a wildly untrue accusation and also have shown that you are still unaware of basic facts in the tautonomy issue I cannot say that I am impressed. The evidence is strongly against you. Nevertheless, this is only one incident and this may be untypical of you. But I cannot tell. Brya 16:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Brya, I'm aware of the basic facts. Tautonyms are words or terms involving repitition of the same word of syllable. I'm also aware of the terms' usages in biological nomenclature, namely referring to the repetition of a scientific name. A term employing this repitition is a tautonym, is tautonymous, and has the property of being a tautonymy. I freely admit that I have no knowledge of the placement and/or acceptance of these terms in the codes you keep referring to. However, this is not wikibotany or wikizoology... this is wikipedia. The article might need some mention of this narrow usage, but deleting the useful parts of the article and replacing it with nothing but a discussion of the narrowness of the terms is not helpful. SB Johnny 17:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

SB_Johnny: those are not the basic facts. That is a general (and vague) description of the concept. The Codes are out there (and to quite a degree have worldwide acceptance) so they are part of reality. Wikipedia should take reality into account. There is also an informal usage of these terms, but no wikipedia article can be correct if it misdescribes the formal rules applying to them in authoritative rulebooks. These formal rules are the most easily verifiable part of this item (in the Codes, available online). So I fail to understand your deepseated resistance to take them into account.

Continued: In Brya's response he writes:

Such perfectly NPoV position tend to be very unpopular, taking flak from all the vested-interest groups.

and

And the Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants:

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to plants. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is :hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians

However there is no clear agreement on anything. All those who contributed are interested in animals and give cursory attention to animals. The whole thing is poorly thought out.

Both of these examples point to a misunderstanding on Brya's part that underlie many of these issues: namely that he interprets "NPOV" to mean "the ICBN POV". The ICBN rules are not the rules governing the English language, nor are they (nor should be) the rules governing wikipedia. It's clear that he sees consensus and common usage to be erroneous uses of language. Again, this is wikipedia... the "definition" of a term by ICBN or any other body is not sufficient to make a good article. Including that definition, with information about why it was adopted in the code and any controversy surrounding that adoption would be interesting to read. However, this does not override the instructive qualities an article should have, such as the etymology of the term, its history, how it is employed, and useful examples to clarify it to the reader, for whose benefit we are obstensibly writing.

See above. No wikipedia article on a topic governed by the Codes is up to standards if it is misdescribes such a basic part of reality as that what is laid down in the Codes. This is not to say that this is all that belongs in an article, but the further away you get from the formal rules the harder it is to describe things properly. At this stage it is hard enough to keep such articles correct, and filling them out to what you say you aim for is far away. Brya 13:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

His insistence that botanical articles should use italics, terms, etc. in a special way also show this quirkiness (a quirkiness which might be charming in another venue). The folks at ToL have come up with a good format for articles about living things, and there is broad consensus about these issues, including among those who work on plant articles. However, Brya is intent on making the plant articles "special", and uses the ICBN as an excuse for carving out a part of WP to be a "special domain". He has mentioned on talk pages here and there that "10% to 30%" (depending on the page in question) do things this way rather than that, and so is a perfectly good and acceptable way to do things. However, he seems to be the only representative of that cadre, and rather than bringing the subject up on the appropriate project pages, he has instead simply ignored the MoS and used a different style. SB Johnny 19:09, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

This of course is a complete misdescription of what is happening here. I am putting in basic information into wikipedia on botany topics (mostly well backed by relevant links to solid information). In making or extensively revising articles I am making these as readable as possible, and my eyes leave me no doubt that in most cases of describing plant taxonomy or plant nomenclature optimum readability is achieved by using italics for botanical names. I have never "insiste[d] that botanical articles should use italics." I have never even said such a thing. Nor have I encouraged anybody to use italics. I am quietly producing carefully formatted articles. Such articles are attacked with some frequency by MPF, who is now supported in his edit war by you and Circeus. Very un-wikipedian.

As to ignoring ToL, well. First and foremost I have to deal with wikipedia policies, reality and my own conscience. Where the ToL-project is counter to wikipedia policies I am duty bound to ignore it. Brya 13:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

ToL

When you think a project runs counter to general policies, the best thing to do would be to take it up with them, so that other people can have a say and any problems can be fixed everwhere. Claiming several topics for your own standards, and expecting everyone else to simply accept what you've decided without discussion, is not going to work even if your standards are better. The pages are not separable.

For instance, someone reading about an order may find italicizing the families helpful. However, someone reading about several orders will more likely find it confusing if some families are italicized and others are not. It is not surprising if MPF and others would rather switch them all to Roman type. Their goal is the same as yours, improved readability; they are simply taking a broader view of the problem than the single page.

The same could be said for switching classification on some pages. If the classification we are using is wrong, it should be changed everywhere. Of course, not everyone may agree that it's wrong. For instance, I don't see how division Magnoliophyta is part of the Cronquist system when various others use it, and I don't see how retaining it above the APG orders is "original research" any more than your retaining kingom Plantae.

In such a case, if each person made pages their own way and expected the others to leave them alone, the result would be a confusing mess with everyone's mistakes going uncorrected. It would be better to talk and when possible come to a joint decision, and so long as people are willing to re-examine potential mistakes, this would be less likely to leave misinformation lying around. This is why projects like TOL exist. It is not surprising to see joint decisions enforced, so if they are truly improper, ignoring them is the last thing you should do.

As for tautonym, this is a general concept that does not need separating from tautonomy. If formal settings have different rules and terminology that should be discussed separately, they should be disambiguated from the common use. Would there be any objections, for instance, to creating tautonym (ICBN) and tautonomy (ICZN)? Josh 20:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Some good points. Of these the last is easiest: in effect this was what I did, splitting it in tautonym (botany) and tautonymy (zoology). I just left off the part between parentheses, but this was a matter of convenience, rather than of principle. I am not at all convinced that there needs to be a tautonym (general english), this looks to be rather marginal, but I would have no problem with that, provided it is written up properly.

Much harder of course is the topic of ToL and its relationship to wikipedia in general. Certainly, the ToL plants group should be thinking about how it wants to deal with plant classification and what taxoboxes should look like.

In my experience such groups are not good about making decisions, mostly because they consist of people with very different backgrounds. It works best when the decisions to be made are small ones, and one or more people have a clear idea on what would be a good solution. I was rather surprised to see the template botanist be changed so smoothly.

Building a consensus is not easy, and depending on circumstances it may as well be the best strategy to start introducing facts, hoping to lay down the ground work for a reasoned discussion later.

As to italics, well, readability is readability. Looking through botanical journals there is a very great number of styles in use, in some cases within the same publication, apparently without problems, and without causing confusion. I have no doubt that using italics for all ranks works well in those case where higher level taxonomy is discussed or where only one rank is being mentioned. It looks less good when more than one rank is combined, especially Astragalus membranaceus (Leguminosae) looks relatively poor as the emphasis should go to the species name. Both Astragalus membranaceus (family Leguminosae) and Astragalus membranaceus (Leguminosae) tend to look better. After a lifetime of seeing accidents happen as a result of misguided attempts at standardization I have become very wary of one-size-fits-all-solutions. I tend to judge things case by case, and by eye. It is much more important to do things well than to shoehorn them into some preconceived idea of what they should look like. Brya 20:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you have some good points here. Might I suggest bringing it up on ToL or the Plants Project?

Regardless of your experience in decision-making among groups small and large, you really just need to bear in mind that when it comes to WP, you're dealing with the large, slow, arduous process of finding a consensus. You simply won't achieve that goal by dismissing the group, and trying to circumvent the group will only lead to edit warring.

As to the italics issue: the MoS puts the responsibly with ToL (see here). The link on the MoS page to ToL lands you here, which includes "Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized— Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia." Of course that's subject to debate, but it's inappropriate to simply ignore it altogether and go your own way. SB Johnny 11:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Brya almost always has good points, worthy of discussion or debate. They are demeaned by unilateral imposition, as it raises opposition to changes that might be found worthwhile in other circumstances. His point about Template:Botanist is well-taken, but in a different way than he perhaps intends. He brought up the shortcomings of the existing template with several of us, we liked it, and the change was made. Consensus.--Curtis Clark 14:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it would be a good idea to bring up suggestions to improve taxoboxes for plants at ToL (at the risk of repeating myself), if only to put it on the record. I will see what I can do. Brya 15:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Getting personal?

While I'm glad Brya has started discussing things on project pages, he has been getting increasingly on my nerves by constantly baiting and biting me (see his contrib page and the edit notes). I have so far been biting my tongue so as not to feed the troll, but it's getting to be rather insulting. Should there be a separate RfC for this? -- SB Johnny 19:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Starting all over again

Is it just me or has Brya resumed doing the exact sort of editing this was started over in the first place? Circeus 02:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Various sources that actually use italics for higher taxa -- NOT

A stack of articles I'm reading in PNAS, American Journal of Botany, Trends in Plant Sciences, Journal of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, BMC Evolutionary Biology, from 1999 to 2006, by scientists from America (Berkeley, UC Davis, Penn State, MOBOT, University of Florida, Indiana University, Clemson, Austin), Taiwan, Canada (Quebec AND Toronto), Germany, Switzerland and New Zealand, scientists include Qiu, Soltis (both), Raven (THE), Palmer, Helwig.

These are the higher taxa names NOT in parantheses in these journal articles:

Gnetales, monocots, Illiciaceae, Pinaceae, Nymphalaeales, Chlorophyta, Angiosperms, Trimeniales, magnoliids, Vitaceae, Berberidaceae.

These are the higher taxa name IN parentheses in these journals:

[none]

KP Botany 19:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)