Talk:List of codes used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions

Article links, pipes and redirects

Re: this revert by User:Peter coxhead with edit comment many of these are not the same area; please work more slowly and carefully.

I actually did work slowly and carefully for this edit. Your blanket revert brings back many erroneous links to articles and categories. For instance, how can you consider that Kaliningrad (linking to the town) is a better link that Kaliningrad Oblast (the region) for the level 4 zone defined as BLT-KA? Or that hypothetical Category:Flora of the Manihiki Islands is better than Category:Flora of Manihiki, despite the fact that Manihiki is a single island and not an island group? Or that non-existent Category:Flora of Altai (region) is better than existing Category:Flora of Altai Krai, which was by the way a subcategory of Flora by distribution categories that follow the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions?

Regarding your comment that many of these are not the same area, although I respectfully disagree to some degree, I concede that in many cases the article linked in the "Article link" column does not exactly match the scope of the WGSRPD zone. However this does not matter because 1°) it is the purpose of this table to inform the reader on the scope of the WGSRPD zones, not the purpose of the "Article link" column, 2°) WGSRPD zones that do not exactly coincide with political or geographical entities are often not notable enough for an article and 3°) this was already the case for many links in the version you reverted too. For instance the "Article link" for "France" was to Metropolitan France, but the scope of this article includes Corsica (which is not part of the WGSRPD zone) and excludes the Channel Islands and Monaco (which are part of the WGSRPD). I therefore replaced it with a link to just France, just like many other European countries in the same situation such as Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain etc. In most cases a link to an article about the region considered, even if not 100% matching, is more informative to the reader than no link at all.

Re your comment on my talk page about Pipes and redirects, I agree that pipes and/or redirects are sometimes very useful. At other times, they mislead the reader about the content which is linked to, as explained in WP:ASTONISH. In the context of this page, an example of a useful redirect imho is Asia-Temperate which redirects to a paragraph giving a precise definition of this WGSRPD term (another example of a useful change removed by your blanket revert). Examples of misleading pipes and redirects are European Turkey (why not use the common name of East Thrace for the region?) or Swaziland. In this last case, there is little need to allow for an easier change if a better article becomes available as you put it, and it is more useful for the reader not to hide the current name of this country which renamed itself in 2018.

I suggest that you discuss here any improvement or disagreement you may suggest for a specific link I updated. There is certainly much room for improvement and, like other, I of course make mistakes. However blanket reverting a generally useful edit is not helpful. Please do consider that other editors can bring valuable input to the article, and that you do not own it. Place Clichy (talk) 09:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It's never a good idea to make a very large number of edits in one go, as you did; that's what I meant by "slowly" – make separate edits so other editors can easily review and react to your changes. I accept that some of them are correct, but others are not. Some comments:

• If you completely hide the name used in the WGSRPD, e.g. "European Turkey" or "Swaziland", this is not helpful to editors using sources that employ the WGSRPD terminology, like Plants of the World Online or the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. I think it's better either to link to the redirect, or, if you don't want to do this, put the WGSRPD name in parentheses for absolute clarity, e.g. "Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)", or "East Thrace (European Turkey)". All the botanical sources I use have "European Turkey"; I have never seen "East Thrace" used in any source I've consulted that gives flora distributions. "European Turkey" has the advantage that it makes it clear that this WGSRPD region is part of Europe, not Western Asia.
• Metropolitan France is not totally accurate, but is far more accurate than France; the political entity includes Indian and Pacific Ocean islands.
• Category:Flora of Altai (region) is correct; Category:Flora of Altai Krai is not. If you look at Map 4 in the source for the WGSRPD, you'll see that the region it labels "ALT" corresponds to a combination of Altai Krai and Altai Republic. The category needs to be moved, which I've now done.
• Re ownership, no, of course I don't own this article, and will be only too happy to see others maintaining it. However, it does fall under the aegis of WP:PLANTS, and considerable time and effort has been spent there by multiple editors to arrive a consensus approach. All I ask is that you work in such a way that the consensus can be maintained. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)