User talk:Melburnian

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Archive 1 Nov 2005 - Mar 2008

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[edit] The Flora of Australia category subtree is a mess

But don't worry, I'm going to fix it. Check this out. Hesperian 05:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. There has been talk at WP:PLANTS of dividing "Flora of Australia"-style categories into "Flora native to/naturalised in/endemic to Australia"-style categories. You've already seen me make a very small start to rolling this out for WA. So "Palms of Australia" eventually needs to be subcategorised, or, if that isn't justified, replaced, by "Palms native to Australia". But until that happens, you're quite right that "Palms of Australia" has a native-only semantics. I'll need to fix that and do another run.
Right now it is a huge task, but it is not a job that has to be done all at once - half-finished is still a big improvement. Once the initial clean-up has been done it will just be a matter of re-running the script every month or so to pick up new articles and changes in the category structure. Hesperian 06:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
That's fixed. I did a new run, which crashed after a query timed out, but I still got the first 250 taxa reports, which is plenty to be going on with. I've done the first 28 tonight, and have found a few minor semantic errors of my own, but also found and fixed some seriously bad categorisation errors, such as Category:Gastrolobium not being in the Flora of Australia subtree despite being an Australian endemic, and Category:Haemodoraceae being tagged into Category:Commeliniales instead of Category:Commelinales. My verdict is that this script is bloody brilliant, if I do say so myself. Hesperian 13:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Cheers. I've just started APG-II'ing Category:Flora of Australia by taxonomy. I didn't know what to do with the Boraginaceae of Australia because it is unplaced at order level in APG-II. Solved the problem by creating Category:Asterids of Australia, and all of a sudden I'm up to my neck in it. Rosids are next. Hesperian 12:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I dread to think what I'm doing to your watchlist, as if Eubot and SatyrBot weren't already doing enough. Sorry about that.

There's an interesting discrepancy in category sizes at Category:Flora of Australia by state or territory. WA has 527 articles; next comes NSW with 219, and so it goes down to ACT with 7. My rough rule of thumb is that a category should be split if it has more than 200 entries i.e. more than one page. I think WA is definitely due to be split. I'm just not sure how to do it. Category:Myrtales of Australia currently has 194 pages, and will bust through 200 pretty soon at the rate I'm tagging; plus it has 40-odd WA Verticordia in a subcategory. Category:Proteales of Australia has only 119 articles but has plenty of Banksia and Hakea in subcategories. Category:Fabales of Australia has 133 articles but not much in subcategories. So one or both of Category:Myrtales of Western Australia and Category:Proteales of Western Australia might do the trick. Any suggestions? (There's a full list of categories with their sizes at User:Hesperian/Floracat#Categories.)

Hesperian 01:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Roger that; I will probably start with Proteales, for no other reason than my own bias. Hesperian 05:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cherry Lake (Altona, Victoria)

I like sedges but have almost no time. I love co-evolutionary relationships between insects and plants (and the viruses that hitchhike between them), and would like to do more with this butterfly and sedge, but don't have said aforementioned time. Don't know if it's in your interest area, but the wetlands look interesting, as does the skipper and its primary food plant. --Blechnic (talk) 07:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Thanks, and for the assorted clean-ups. --Blechnic (talk) 22:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dredging images

Hi Melburnian, just wanted to say that the images you added to the Port Phillip Channel Deepening Project article look great! I've been in contact with Blue Wedges' professional photographer and so I may have some photos up soon. Davido321 (talk) 11:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RE Welcome

Hi Melburnian - thanks for the Welcome - I see you've been busy for some time and have a full record of Port Phillip Bay dredging. Many moons ago I was part of an environmental study team for PPB. It takes a while to get used to the structure of WP and what is going on so I might be in touch now and again, seeing that you've offered ... but I like its rather anarchic muddling towards goals. Must see what you are up to with the Australian Flora. Will be in touch. Thanks for the welcome. --Granitethighs (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for that

Hope I left enough explanation round to explain the folly of the action :( - thank you for your oversight on that one - I owes ya! - cheeraio and good night ( i think) SatuSuro 13:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC) Yeah well it goes down to wanting be a minder for poor ole cygnis down there in the great southern - he had dabbled in that one - and I have been to a place that had an exhibition of gibbs things in south perth - so the association is perhaps not so obvious - SatuSuro 13:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stylidium images

You may be interested in the discussion here in terms of a source of Stylidium images. --Melburnian (talk) 07:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice! There are indeed two photos on there that will be useful when I begin creating Stylidium species stubs again. Thanks again for letting me know about it! Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 22:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hass avocado

Hi,

Why the preference for Hass (avocado) over Hass avocado? WP:NAME seems to support the unbracketed version. I'm not as familiar with plant pages, is there a sub-guideline that exists or some discussion on a wikiproject with more guidance? Thanks for any help, WLU (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it. Since I'm not an admin I can't overwrite redirects so unfortunately I'm stuck with cut-and-pastes, a habit I should get out of. I also wasn't worried about the implications for other pages! My flimsy recall of WP:NAME is that the best choice is the least ambiguous to the reader, not editor, and I think the unbracketed version is that. But I'm quite willing to be over-ruled if the wikiproject coughs up anything relevant and it's not like it's onerous for the reader to deal with redirects. I don't mind tedious redirect corrects, so if clarity arises from the wikiproject discussion please feel free to drop me a line and I can help with that task on Hass or other pages. Redirect corrects are an easy way to feed my editcoutitis. WLU (talk) 15:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tecticornia pergranulata

Nice to see more of these species articles; thanks for contributing it. I was surprised that you hadn't used the Commons image Samphire_Halosarcia.png. Is that photo correctly identified as T. pergranulata? It's used as such in the glasswort article. Easchiff(talk) 10:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm as certain as I can be it's correctly identified. Marked as such on a nearby sign, and backed up by a vegetation audit of the constructed wetland this is in a few years ago (Ecological Management and Restoration, August 2004). As far as I can find out the only other Tecticornia in the area is flabelliformis; which has a harder, less beaded construction than pergranulata - Peripitus (Talk) 12:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. The image will remain at glasswort; I'll leave it to you whether to incorporate it into the pergranulata infobox. Easchiff(talk) 22:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unbelievable

I made a start on a red link, Tecticornia arbuscula, a couple of days ago, but got distracted and had to leave the edit window up for a few days. I have just got back to it, finished writing it, hit the save button, and discovered that you have written a stub in the interim! Judging by the edit history, we were originally working on it at the same time. What are the chances! Hesperian 13:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that is too creepy. Next on my list was Suaeda australis, and you did that one too. Methinks you must have figured out the method to my madness, and decided to help out. Shall I leave the plant redlinks to you, and focus on the island redlinks? Hesperian 13:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Golly, so it was a coincidence, more or less! I'm working through the red links on North Island (Houtman Abrolhos), with a view to FACing it one of these days. Since I have a copy of Flora of Australia IV, I thought I'd do the Amaranthaceae first. I was working on the second last one, took a break, and on returning to it found you'd done both.
The only plant left on both our lists is Myoporum insulare. Frankly, blueing this list is feeling like a bit of a chore at the moment, so I should be happy to leave M. insulare in your capable hands. And if you want to tackle any others on my list, feel free. Hesperian 01:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)