🍂MtBotany

I don't use the word "discovered" when writing about plants. I use phrases like "collected scientific specimens". Or "scientifically described and named". Because that is what a botanist is doing. The value in their work is not shouting, "first!" It is doing structured work that others can build on.

I had independently come to the conclusion that "male cone" and "female cone" were not as useful to readers of Wikipedia as "pollen cone" and "seed cone" when describing conifers. Most readers will know what a seed is and pollen is easily linked and more accurate than male as a description.

So if an editor suspects someone of running two accounts to get around something they ask for a Sockpuppet Investigation. The clerks will check to see how strong the public evidence is and check to see if they're on the same IP or other stuff.

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

*It is allowable to have more than one account, but it should either be openly an alternate account or else they should edit is totally separate areas. If you comment or edit on the same article it would look like more people are involved and that's a big, "NO."

Codicil: DON'T GIVE ANY POLITICAL PARTY YOUR PHONE NUMBER. You'll go on a list to be dunned by candidates everywhere in the country for funds forever. Ask me how I know.

One of the internal workings on Wikipedia is Sockpuppet Investigations. In order to work together as people behind screens we need to know how many people are actually involved. So, one of the hardest rules is "DON'T SOCKPUPPET."*

Not pointing at the article because in the unlikely event that they want to be infamous I'm not going to give them the satisfaction.

Maybe. But the information also seems to be just wrong. And they've apparently made a second account trying to add the same information so I've thrown it to Sockpuppet Investigations. One of the hardest rules on Wikipedia, don't try to do the same thing or support your edits with a second account.

Weird. I'm dealing with someone adding information to an obscure plant article referencing a couple of journal articles that contain no information about the plant. What in the world is their goal here? Its like the person understands a citation as a magic spell that stops people questioning you.

Hey. Hey. You!

Are you worried about losing access to JSTOR or other digital libraries? Maybe you left college, but you still want to read reaserch papers.

Learn to edit Wikipedia. If you do 500 or more edits over six months you get access.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

My favorite song about this time is Al Stewart's The Last Day of June 1934.

🎶
And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets
Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets
And Europe lies sleeping
You feel her heartbeats through the floor
On the last day of June 19...
🎶

I recommend some cactus fruits as another example. Tastes good, but very clear that the plant is doing Deadpool style "maximum effort" by making its fruit 85% seeds with the texture of hard wood bits and 15% shockingly pink fruit pulp.

Ich liebe dieses Meme. 😂

Und auch! verbotene = forbidden and advent calendars with little doors for kids to open up one each day in the season before Christmas are a big cultural thing in Germany/Austria.

I think their flavor is somewhat like a mild cucumber. Also, the leaves of springbeauty are similarly mild and worth trying and bloom in a similar time frame.

Excellent.

In May there will be Fawn Lilies/Glacier Lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum) blooming at some elevation and I recommend trying the flowers. They don't taste extraordinary, but they are pleasant and so common that you don't have to worry about taking food from the wild creatures.

Penstemon harringtonii - Wikipedia

Harrington seems to be one of those botanists that I wish I could have met, but he died in the 1980s. I like reading his writing on plants. It makes me feel more kindly towards the name Penstemon harringtonii. Also, one of the penstemon articles I did not write.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penstem...

I have real doubts on some of their entries if they have any personal experience with the plant in question.

On the other hand, Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains by Harold Harrington is wonderfully detailed and is clear about how he and collaborators experimented with cooking plants.

I also want marzipan... I wish it were as commonly available and inexpensive here as it was when I visited Berlin in September a while back.

I'm researching edibility claims for a wild plant species.

I love it when authors makes it clear they're repeating information from other writers and loathe when a book seems to be repeating information without attribution. I'm calling out Edible Wild Plants by Elias and Dykeman.

I did notice that the Guest of Honor at COSine will be Cory Doctorow and I have read some of his books.

Thanks.

I bounced off Snow Crash many years ago due to not liking the writing style. I suppose I could try it again, but lately I have been reading lots of gentle fantasies for fun. And massive books with titles like Intermountain Flora : Vascular Plants of the Intermountain West. Vol. 3A

The sun is still hidden behind the mountains, but a bright glow is showing where it will rise. Wisps of vapor rise on the glassy lake and in the foreground a lupine is blooming with the sunflower yellow blooms of northern wyethias around it.

A morning picture from back in June in northern Colorado. Looking towards the Mount Zirkel Wilderness over Steamboat Lake.

And the other thing to announce is that MtBotany will be at Cosine, the Colorado Springs Science Fiction Convention, in January. I will be presenting Citation Needed: Editing Wikipedia for Fun and No Profit for people interested in becoming one of the people who edit the encyclopedia.

Also, the picture from iNat is frickin' fantastic. Emily/ladyliatris took an awesome picture.

I made this article last year in December and it was about the time I really started to "get gud" at writing articles. When I checked over my work this week all I had to do was make sure all the common names were linked. It could use some additions, but largely complete. Still happy with it.

Castilleja scabrida - Wikipedia

Everything I do is public, because Wikipedia, but I'm not going to point anyone at the articles I'm rewriting until I'm done and they all have pretty pictures from iNaturalist. Though I recently checked up on Castilleja scabrida, rough paintbrush.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castill...

But I continue to do work on Wikipedia. Going down the list of all plants that grow in Colorado and making sure they all have a basic taxonomy section and their NatureServe status. Plus rewriting some existing articles quite completely.

I continue to do... things. I had to delete BlueSky off my phone because I kept on looking at it in the middle of the night because I have the will power of a marzipan cookie and so now I only look at it when I power up my computer.

🧵

I did not know to look for trilliums in Colorado. I'll have to keep my eyes open next June.