Talk:Onion/Archive 1

Archive 1

Medicinal properties section is contradictory

It states: "it has not been conclusively demonstrated that increased consumption of onions is directly linked to health benefits". This is followed by statements like:

"Onions may be especially beneficial for women,[17] who are at increased risk for osteoporosis as they go through menopause, by destroying osteoclasts so that they do not break down bone."

"For all varieties of onions, the more phenols and flavonoids they contain, the more antioxidant and anti-cancer activity they provide. When tested against liver and colon cancer cells, Western Yellow, pungent yellow (New York Bold[19]) and shallots were most effective in inhibiting their growth."

"most pungent onions delivered many times the benefits of their milder cousins" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.178.125.85 (talk) 10:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

How onions grow and are shipped to stores

I think something about how onions grow should be included, as well as how they make it from farm to store, the processes they go through, etc. KannD86 (talk) 03:48, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

my father has been avoiding eye irritation for years by having a mouthful of water when cutting onions, and it works too. can anyone find out why this might work? (im too busy to do it myself)

There is already an article for genus Allium. Certainly when people talk about "the onion" in english, they are referring exclusively to Allium cepa. I think this is better kept to the narrower usage, with a reference to many (though not all) Alliums being called "this and that onion". After all, many wild Alliums are called garlics. WormRunner 23:02, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, I changed it back to a species page. If anyone gets too horribly upset, I would suggest moving this page to garden onion or common onion and changing the resulting redirect under onion to point at allium. When I have more time, I would like to add a section on varieties, including not only "sweet spanish" and the like, but the egyptian onion, multiplier onions and so forth. WormRunner 06:51, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Useage of different kinds of Onion

does anyone tell me how to use the different colour of onion and what the taste like ? would the red onion be sweeter ? can i use the red onion for soup ?

Drug Company Ad?

Is it just me or does this excerpt sound like an advertisement from a big pharmaceutical corporation: "Onions may be especially beneficial for women[citation needed], who are at increased risk for osteoporosis as they go through menopause. Fosamax (Alendronate), the drug typically prescribed to prevent excessive bone loss, works in a similar manner, by destroying osteoclasts, so they do not break down bone. Potential negative side effects of Fosamax include irritation of the upper gastrointestinal mucosa, acid regurgitation, esophageal ulcers and erosions." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.15.85 (talk) 20:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Onion set?

What the heck is an onion set? There's a link to it under cultivate, but it just redirects back to onion. --24.46.164.83 07:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Nutrition

There should be some info on the nutritional value of onions (if any?)

Just put some of that up too Andham2000 23:19, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

No mention is made if an onion is a vegetable. If it is, it should be so stated. If not, it should be mentioned exactly what it is.

Verification of edit

Can anyone verify the additions made by the anonymous poster? If this is widely practiced that is great. I just haven't heard of such a practice. Liblamb 15:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Sulfenic acid

Is it Sulfenic Acid or Sulfonic Acid? Wikipedia has an article for the latter, but not the former. Also, there seems to be some controversy on the subject of why sulfe(o?)nic acid is released - the latest studies according to one source say that Lachrymatory-factor synthase, not allinases, are responsible for the gases emitted. Ivkost 20:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Osteoporosis

I'm not sure whether refs are desirable for the osteoporosis claim, but:

• Roman C. Mühlbauer and Feng Li in Nature Sep 1999
• H. Wetli in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2005: Nov 05

Gamahucheur 23:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Onions and dogs

Why are onions dangerous for dogs to eat? Can someone put this in the article? -Thanks

Onions are dangerous for dogs to eat due to the high toxicity they contain the same as chocolate can not be eaten by dogs. Everything Pet - Pet Supplies —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.78.81 (talk) 16:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Onions in antiquity

Why did they eat so many onions back then? I understand they were eaten raw - were they a different (less sharp) cultivar then is commonly grown today? 71.199.123.24 07:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Probably they just weren't such sissies. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.138.32.24 (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Onions in the old days and even in the ancient days were eaten as a medicine just as citrus fruits were eaten by sailors to prevent scurvy. Onions clean the blood system very quickly and builds the immune system just as garlic does, but garlic taste some what better and yes we are sissies now days because "an onion a day will keep every one away", my quote by RAH, world traveler.

Genus Allium

Onion in the general sense can be used for any plant in the genus Allium

Seriously? Allium sativum can be called onion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.138.32.24 (talk) 20:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

For some reason the "citation needed" mark on this statement was removed. It needs a citation. It is by no means clear that there is anyone who uses "onion" to mean any member of Allium. I would be highly surprised if you can find somewhere where garlic is called an onion. For example, the definition at dictionary.com mentions "any of certain similar plants [to Allium cepa]" (emphasis added). It says nothing about any member of Allium.

In response to the unsigned comment above - you can find the definition in dictionaries, no need for a citation in the article. For example, according to Merriam-Webster, an onion is "any of various plants of the same genus as the onion". I'm removing the "citation needed" sign. Liffey 13:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Flavour?

I was just playing the "Urban Myth" board game and one of the trivia cards says that the statement "Onions have no flavour" is true. Any idea why? In the article it says that onions have a strong flavour.--24.57.19.247 03:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This could be because onions do not trigger any of the basic tastes of the human tongue. The 'flavor' (flavour?) of an onion is strictly because of the nose. A trick I have heard is to hold your nose and eat an onion, and it will be nearly flavorless. --Mdwyer 17:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Expiration date?

How long is an onion usually good for? Does refrigeration extend this? How can you tell when an onion is bad? I can't find this information anywhere on the web

Onion is good for 3 months it should be fully dry. If it wet it will get spoiled very soon. The refrigeration shorten the life of onion because it is cool. It needs to be dry. It usually gives a strong bad smell when it is bad. --SkyWalker 13:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

why do onions give you bad breath? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.224.67.29 (talk) 05:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Teargas claim

The claim that onions were used as tear gas originated with this edit: [1] by User:AprilMayJune on July 27, 2006. It's an interesting idea, and it's all over the internet, but I have not found a source that did quote straight from this very article or that was written before July 2006. It smells like original research (made up) to me. If someone else can find the source, then great, but if not, I'm taking it out. --Vlmastra 03:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Food versatility

I'd like to add a section or at least some commentary on the extraordinary versatility of the onion in most cuisines. I've seen it written many times that "the beginning of any great meal is the chopping of an onion." An onion provides sweetness, bulk, bite, and a amazing amount of absorption of other flavors to every dish I can think of, short of desserts. It's also remarkably dexterous on its own - from onion rings to the cocktail onion in a Gibson. If others think that this would be inappropriate or insensitive to other cultures, I'd appreciate insight now before it goes live. Hythlodayalmond 01:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead with this - I dont think its in any way inappropriate or insensitive. Thinking about it, hare krishnas dont eat onion, they say it reminds them of the penis. Maybe this needs its own section?78.150.145.223 (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Crying

I read that onions make you cry by entering through your nose and not your eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.248.163.215 (talk) 22:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I wear contact lenses. When I peel or cut onions, I don't have tears in my eyes. Is that common and worth mentioning?19:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Onion

Can Onion Increase the Sex Power ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.30.35.4 (talk) 01:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"Glass Onion"--song by The Beatles from The White Album

"Glass Onion"

"Glass Onion"--song by The Beatles from The White Album —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjzarif (talk • contribs) 09:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Fertility

So onions are fed to dogs and other household pets for fertility reasons?? - Denimadept (talk) 16:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Health benefits

Nearly all of the section on "medicinal uses" was pasted from the "World's Healthiest Foods" reference. Since most of the statements were either unsourced or referenced studies that didn't support the conclusions that the site drew (e.g., people who ate more onions got cancer less than those who ate fewer; onions contain an anti-inflammatory chemical, therefore eating lots of onions means your arthritis will go away), I just deleted it. KarlM (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• There is no information in this article about what it is in onion that causes acute stomach pain in some people after eating. 86.177.205.41 (talk) 00:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Onions in Language

Virtually the entire Onions in Language section seems to me to be in flagrant violation of WP:NAD, and ought to be deleted or seriously trimmed.FrFintonStack (talk) 12:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Shallot? Confusion.

The statement "Allium cepa is also known as the 'garden onion' or 'bulb' onion and 'shallot'." seems incorrect to me. I've never heard common bulb onions referred to as shallots - to me, "shallot" refers to the classic grey French shallot, or the multiplier onions often sold as shallots. I hesitate to change the article without asking. Is this common terminology somewhere?

ChickenWings (talk) 07:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

All varieties of onion are poisonous??

The article states that all varieties of onion are poisonous, and lists one wild variety in particular. The claim is cited, however the citation refers only to the one wild variety listed. I think it is hardly reasonable to use this as rationale that all onions are poisonous. Vote that this be clarified as saying "many varieties of onions are toxic to young children and livestock" 174.34.76.138 (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)Amy Ross

You are correct, I modified it to say "some" are poisonous. A new name 2008 (talk) 18:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Compare vs. Scallion

This article states (under "Propagation"):

Either planting method may be used to produce spring onions...which are the leaves and/or immature plants.

This appears to contradict the introduction to the article on Scallions:

A...green onion...is associated with various members of the genus Allium that lack a fully-developed bulb.

Can we arrive at a consensus that scallions/green onions are either

• Onions harvested before the bulb develops, or
• Allium varieties that don't develop a bulb

Or, failing a consensus, can we at least bring the two articles into agreement with each other, that the term appears to apply to both categories? Bgoldnyxnet (talk) 11:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI...

http://www.google.com/patents?id=HdcKAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&dq=+fried+onion+aroma&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1_1#PPA1,M1

It is commonly agreed that the aroma in fried onions is much pleasant than the raw ones--124.78.210.202 (talk) 07:27, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

From "Allergies and eye irritation."

"It may also be that lens wearers are familiar with controlling the more reflexive actions of their eyes with regards to irritation; as this is an ability they require when manipulating the lenses to prevent blinking."

Prevent blinking? I wear contacts and I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. 128.211.198.168 (talk) 08:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Pop Culture

I don't understand why the pop culture section was removed. This gives onions some cultural context in western world. It shows how we, society, interact with onions on a daily, everyday, mundane basis. I realize much of the article is scientific in nature, in the route of chemistry/biology. Would it be more acceptable were the heading "Sociology?" This would show that we are discussing society interactions and beliefs about onions. Kitten mittens (talk)Kitten Mittens —Preceding undated comment added 17:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

US centered

while india and china top the production of onion this article has pictures from US cities.123.238.70.154 (talk) 14:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Propagation

Need to add if removal of the seed head stalk on onion sets will produce a bigger bulb that if left to flower and produce seeds. Other info on the flower/seeds too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Optimizerone (talk • contribs) 23:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Green Onions

Can we get some clarification on this? The site currently reads: "Either planting method may be used to produce spring onions or green onions, which are the leaves of immature plants. Green onion is a name also used to refer to another species, Allium fistulosum, the Welsh onion, which is said not to produce dry bulbs." suggesting that green onions are nothing but the immature leaves of regular onion plants, but according to the green onion article, it's a completely different species. I'm pretty sure that this should be changed because the leaves of immature plants are NOT green onions. I plant onions and green onion seeds are specifically sold separately from those of regular onions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.253.36.46 (talk) 07:32, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Potential medicinal use

Should this be either next to or a sub section of "Medicinal properties and health effects"? Also a one liner for a subject is rather short IMHO. Maybe expand it if it's worth it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.173.84 (talk) 04:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Medicinal properties and health effects

I've heard numerous times about keeping an onion in your (bed)room to prevent or help cure a common cold or even a pneumonia. Has any research been done on this? Why does it work, if it does? Personal use seems to indicate it does help. One claim states that the onion absorbs the viruses and microbes. (seems unlikely to me) Maybe split this section in actual researched benefits and health usage that is not (yet) proved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.173.84 (talk) 04:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

My crap replacement for super-crap lead 'graph

As i found it, the lead 'graph read

The onion is any of a variety of plants in the genus Allium, specifically Allium cepa. Allium cepa is also known as the "garden onion" or "bulb" onion. Above ground, the onion shows only a single vertical shoot; the bulb grows underground, and is used for energy storage, leading to the possibility of confusion with a tuber, which it is not.<ref>Uri.edu</ref> It is a close relative to garlic.

It would take a lot of work to make it into a good lead, but it would be harder still to leave it unchanged. Here's a less horrible version:

Onions are the plants of dozens of the species of the genus Allium, and thus close relatives of garlics. Many{{quantify}} varieties of onions in the species Allium cepa are used for human food, and described as "garden onions" or "bulb onions".{{fact|reason=One ref may or not verify both sentences; if yours verifies only the second, tag the first when you remove this tag.}} Above ground, the onion shows only a single vertical shoot;{{dubious|reason=See the photo lower in this article showing "Onion growing shoots" (note plural "shoot*s*"), which clearly emerge separately from the bulb and not from a single above-ground stalk.}} the bulb grows underground, and is used for energy storage.{{fact}} (This superficial resemblance invites confusion with tubers, which are quite distinct forms.){{why?|reason=Name one difference: "Tubers do A; onions do B."}}

1. The phrase "specifically Allium cepa" (rather than "notably ...") seems to say that onions are all in A. cepa, but thirty onion species are listed in {{Allium}}
2. In context, it also seems to imply that the [one] "variety of plants" its sentence refers to constitutes the one species named. Since varieties in the sense of Variety (botany) are important distinctions among onions, "variety" should mean that sense, anywhere in this article where the grammar does not rule out ambiguity. (In fact, some of these varieties are already individually mentioned.)
3. In the sentence in which it was placed, the existing citation did not support anything but the words "the bulb grows underground".
4. And it's hard to imagine that no other existing ref could do that. Thank you, U of RI, for providing likewise the binomial spec'n of that important species. But I am disqualifying that page, which calls the whole species "an onion" but proceeds to reveal that the varieties differ so much that two of them cannot reproduce via seed; common sense is that two varieties that breed true but differ to that extent are different plants, and different onions. I don't know if there's a botanical rule about when all the varieties of a species may be lumped as "a [plant]", but more of our readers than not will find that such lumping flies in the face of common sense. For me, that's prima facie evidence that the page is too vague to be a reliable source for purposes of taxonomy on this page. If you think there are places in that 'graph (or others where that source is currently uncited), where we can't in practice better rely on a less tainted source (even if such likely available other sources are not, at the time i write, yet identified), then make a specific case for needing it in the place you have in mind.
5. I see no indication of other species providing human food. We should find out, and name at least the most economically important or most interesting exception (with a ref) if there are any, or, if there are none, provide a ref and say so. My wording sucks, bcz it tries to hide that inadequacy, but at least it's not a lie.

--Jerzy•t 02:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that there were serious problems with the original introduction and that it needed to be re-written. I am going to attempt a re-write of my own, I hope you don't mind. Feel free to make further changes or complain about it here.Jaoakley (talk) 03:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

To clarify the changes I have just made:

1. Generally when people talk about "onions" without using a preceding adjective they are referring to A. cepa.
2. With about 750 species in the genus Allium, it could be true that "onion" has been applied to dozens of them. However, many of the species in the genus are known only locally in areas where English is not spoken and thus have no English name. Also, there are many species that are more garlic-flavoured than onion-flavoured (this is not a taxonomic distinction, within various subgenera and even sections of the genus there are both species referred to as "garlics" or "onions". Therefore I have chosen to list specific species.
3. Strictly speaking, the common onion is A. cepa var. cepa. It may be worth considering specifying this in the introduction, but I chose not to (for now) because the vast majority of cultivated A. cepa belong to var. cepa, with var. aggregatum being a comparatively minor crop (both shallots and potato onions). The var. viviparum/proliferum has been reclassified as A. ×proliferum.
4. I could not find a good reference for the name "garden onion". While it has certainly been used by some on the Internet, this seems strange to me: any "onion" grown in a garden would surely be a "garden onion". (and where else would someone grow their onions?)
5. I have completely removed the reference to onions being confused with tubers. I am sure that most people know onions are bulbs rather than tubers, and that those who don't can at least figure out that an onion does not grow similarly to a potato.
6. The reference that I have provided specifically lists those species as having those common names (ie. including the name "onion") and as being cultivated for food. There are many other species in the genus Allium that have been collected from the wild and eaten by various peoples (all Alliums are edible), but not necessarily referred to as "onions". There are certainly some that are referred to as "onions", but I don't feel it necessary to name every single one of them.
7. Your edit correctly noted that onions do not always grow with one shoot, although only one shoot is desirable for common onions, and therefore what is most commonly seen. (multiple shoots may result in bulb splitting, which is what happens in shallots and multiplier onions) This doesn't seem like it should be part of an introduction to me - maybe in the "Cultivated Onions" section or in a new section on onion morphology?

Jaoakley (talk) 04:54, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

   Wow! That is so much better than what i dared soon hope for! If you can work on other parts of the article, that'd be wonderful.
   There's a tag that suggests my inferior "established user" version would be used in place of yours for the school version of WP bcz you are a relatively new user. I'm doing a dummy edit that should have the effect of "giving my blessing" to your version.
--Jerzy•t 05:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!--Jaoakley (talk) 00:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Varieties

I have just made a number of changes to the "Varieties" section, and it seems to be too much to fit into the edit summary.

1. The leek is not a variety of onion, so I removed it - I think that very few people would confuse leeks with onions
2. Categorized some of the other previously listed "varieties" into their botanical varieties, var. cepa and var. aggregatum. Removed the additional (redundant) reference to sweet onions, and the reference to yellow onions, which describes hundreds of cultivars that have nothing in common aside from having yellow skin.
3. The tree onion and Welsh onion are not varieties (in any sense) of A. cepa, but it seems reasonable that they might be confused with A. cepa, so I have retained them under "Species which may be confused with A. cepa".
4. I made the "European onions" section a sub-section of the new "Common onion group" section, since all of these cultivars belong to var. cepa.

--Jaoakley (talk) 00:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but wasn't part of the article to point out the items which are not true onions? If we remove those, we do no help the reader understand the difference. This comparison does not fit smoothly in any other place. I would leave a couple paragraphs for this purpose.

Also, I would suggest that the article include references and explanations about very sweet varieties, as well as the southern plant called ramp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KitchM (talk • contribs) 18:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Propagation & Production - clear errors

There seems to be major discrepancies between the Propagation map & Production data that can't be accounted for by year. Australia is a obvious one, with the map suggesting 0.21m tons & the listing at 4.0m tons. Sorry but at least one of these has to be wrong.

--Rustgold (talk) 05:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Query about the onion family

Why does this give the family of onions as Amaryllidaceae, when this website:

http://www.exoticpetvet.net/avian/onions.html

says that onions, garlics and chives are all in the lily family, Liliaceae ? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Because the website, like many other sources, is well out-of-date (alliums have been put in several families at different times). In Wikipedia, the most widely supported modern classification system is used for plants; this is the APG III system. Don't believe everything you read on the web (unless you read it here!!). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Variety of English

It's hard to decide what variety of English this article should be written in, as so many people have edited it and spellings have changed back and forward. However, the creator definitely used British spellings here, so WP:RETAIN supports keeping to British spellings. I have added the appropriate template. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Onion seeds 3D picture

I removed the File:Onioncrop.jpg stereo-image from the article on 22 April. It has now been restored by the image-author. This particular image of onion seeds is very poor quality. It is far larger than the actual pixel-resolution of the source image (it appears to have been crudely resized 2x). It has been very badly processed to cut it out of the background, so the shadows have clear scissor edges. The article had (and now again has) too many pictures. There isn't enough body text to support the images used. We already have one image in the propagation section so adding this one just causes all the other images to flow down into sections below where they should be. Basically, just because we have an image doesn't mean it should appear in the article. That's what Commons is for. I propose this very weak image be removed again.

I also propose File:Onion growing shoots.jpg be removed too. This is a shop-bought onion that has started germinating. That is not how onions are propagated and so has no encyclopaedic value. Colin°^Talk 07:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree entirely with these comments about File:Onioncrop.jpg. I have removed the image again. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

About eye irritation

It is said in this article that onions can lead to eye irritation - after all, it is well known that onions can make people cry. I have long understood that bread can be used as a remedy for this - does any one think that this ought to go in the article? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Can this "fact" be sourced using what Wikipedia considers a reliable source? If so, yes. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Removal of primary source material

The information on scar reduction is based on a single primary source, a very low-n trial of only 20 subjects of a single ethnicity. Only 20 subjects were involved, only 16 completed the trial, three of five measures showed no change, and it is overall a very poor source to make such a sweeping statement as "it works but not for caucasian people". I have looked on pubmed for recent review articles, this is the most recent I could find, and though the abstract does not discuss results, it does indicate there are no agreed-upon, effective modalities - and that includes onion extract. Per both WP:MEDRS and WP:PSTS, I do not think this is an adequate source for such a firm statement about reducing scarring in non-caucasian populations. If better sources can be found to verify the text, I have no objection to the information remaining - but this is not a good source to do so. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I strongly agree that WP:MEDRS must be rigorously followed. Articles like this one (Garlic is another) regularly see the good-faith addition of medicine-related material which has inadequate sourcing. Medical claims rightly need to be supported by highly reliable sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:43, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Other studies seem to have found no statistically significant advantages of using onion gel on wound scars. Your original edit summary was insufficient to explain why you were taking action, but now that I understand the rationale behind the removal of this statement, I have no objection to its going. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Stomach problems

I'm surprised to find no mention of the digestive problems onions cause for a lot of people. Is there no research into this? 86.128.241.188 (talk) 19:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Cultivation section

I see that this article has passed the GA review, but I have to say that I think that Onion#Cultivation is not fully compliant with WP:NOTHOW, specifically "Describing to the reader how other people ... do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to .. do something is not." The second half particularly has many instructions: "fresh seed should be used each year", "This should only be done", "The soil should not be rich", "should be harvested after the leaves have died back", "should be stored in a well-ventilated, cool place".

I know that Cultivation sections are difficult to write in the recommended Wikipedia style – I don't think I've always succeeded when I've tried – but a GA should be an exemplar. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Should we split this article into "Onion" (all vegetables called onion), and "Garden Onion" (or whatever the appropriate name for A. cepa is)

• I agree that the discussion we should have is whether "onion" should be treated as a biological entry, or as a vegetable entry. I think I see support and little opposition to the idea of having an article discussing the various things (mostly related species) called onions and their major varieties, uses etc. And then having species articles for the Common or Garden Onion (A. cepa) etc., and expect that the species articles would each contain species info boxes that are exactly long enough to contain the same categories of information as all other species. If all things called onion are mutually equivalent to one level of the taxo tree (some genus or family? - OK, I am not a botanist!) then a taxo box of some description for the onion article would be appropriate. --Tony Wills (talk) 06:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Before you start tallying votes and making page moves, I suggest you ask for help from editors with experience in naming problems. And read the MOS guidance. Your first step should be to look at "What links here" to find out what topic most people are linking to "onion" for. Look at the list of supermarket vegetables I link above. How do they handle this? I suspect nearly all food plants have a common name that only actually applies to one species or variety but that doesn't mean that everyone wanting to read an article on "onion" has to work out which onion before getting to the most likely topic. -- Colin°^Talk 09:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

A few good points on article writing but I wasn't volunteering :-). If I was to do it I would simply create the two articles and amend the incoming links to suit, and having set the parameters, utilise the power of crowd sourced editing to get it to make sense. ;-) --Tony Wills (talk) 11:46, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

@Colin: There are, as you would expect, a lot of links to this article. Wandering randomly around them:

• Some are clearly food-related, but non-specific as to which precise kind of onion is meant, i.e. whether it's what I would typically think of as an "onion" or whether it's a shallot, one of the East Asian Group cultivars, or some other "scallion" type. This non-specificity applies particularly to links from "X cuisine" articles.
• Some seem to mean a "typical" bulb onion.
• A few are aimed at the botanical species.

It's a bit of a mess since there are also the articles Yellow onion, Red onion and White onion, as well as Shallot, Scallion, Tree onion, Potato onion, etc. Some of the links to "onion" should actually be to one of these more specific articles.

I concluded that there are two main uses of "onion" in Wikilinks:

1. a fairly specific reference to "bulb" or "common" onions, regardless of precise colour or cultivar, i.e. to the cultivar group which can be referred to as Allium cepa var. cepa.
2. a more general reference to a wider range of cultivars commonly called onions, including at least bulb onions, shallots, tree onions, potato onions, and some kinds of scallion, i.e. to Allium cepa as a whole, plus some of its hybrids.

It didn't help me to decide what an article called "Onion" should be about. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

MEDRS issue(s)

I removed "Consumption is believed to benefit health" from the lead, because (a) this is not a summary of a statement in the body of the article (b) there is no source compliant with WP:MEDRS for this claim, so far as I can see.

The section "Nutrition and health" should reference at least one secondary review of any health-related claims as per WP:MEDRS, but doesn't seem to do so. If the article is to meet GA standards, this should be addressed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS compliance isn't required by or referenced by the GA criteria. The expectation of such compliance might be beneficial, but to insist upon it for GA eligibility is above and beyond the criteria. I'd agree at the FAC level, but not at GA. --ColonelHenry (talk) 19:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that WP:MEDRS compliance ins't required by GA criteria. An article must be "stable" for GA and FA. In plants articles, one of the biggest battles had by plant editors is the attempt by editors to assert false health claims in articles, often to advertise products, but also just by editors overly devoted to using Wikipedia to promote non-mainstream medicine; this then leads to edit wars, blocks, etc. MEDRS helps to prevent this by requiring that health claims have a very specific type of sourcing. If this is not met by this article, the article will not be stable. --(AfadsBad (talk) 19:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC))

That's a WP:CRYSTALBALL prediction, not a policy-based argument.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:49, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Onion/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: ColonelHenry (talk · contribs) 01:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking forward to reviewing this article. --ColonelHenry (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Quite a large article, so thank you for taking it on. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Initial comments

This is a very ambitious article and that poses difficulty in terms of weighing WP:SUMMARY with the comprehensiveness that ought to be present in the interests of breadth of coverage (the balance of criteria 3). I do see with a little more expansion and copyediting, this would be a great FAC candidate and likely a good candidate to be added at Vital Articles (if it isn't there already...note to self, must check). I do have a few advisory comments that I will be adding to:--ColonelHenry (talk) 22:00, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• There are several sections that are one or two sentences in the Varieties section. Moving forward per the MOS, either they have to be expanded into stand alone sections or combined.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• • The introduction of a list in the European onions section doesn't seem appropriate. Why are they protected? why are they significant? what protections are afforded them?

Removed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• There needs to be more information in the production and trade section.
• In cultivation, I think there needs to be more discussion on soil conditions. For instance, according to the USDA-NRCS the two most productive onion areas (in terms of per-acre yields) in world are dense, deeply organic soils near Valdosta, Georgia, and the Black Dirt Region shared between Sussex County, New Jersey and Orange County, New York (the former "Drowned Lands of the Wallkill River"). Neither of them can be describe as "best cultivated in light to medium soils that are well-drained and have had well-rotted manure or compost dug in the previous year"

Enlarged and improved. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• These assertions need a citation supporting them: (from Historical use)
  • spherical shape and concentric rings symbolized eternal life. Onions were even used in Egyptian burials, as evidenced by onion traces being found in the eye sockets of Ramesses IV.
  • sentences in the next paragraph regarding ancient greek and roman use. If this is footnote 14, just repeat the citations.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

...more to come.--ColonelHenry (talk) 22:00, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Review

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   I do not see any spelling or grammatical problems, the prose is clear and concise, no evidence or indication of copyvios.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   Complied with MOS guidelines. I do not see any problems with the five specific MOS sections required by 1b.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   complies with layout style guideline for references, contains appropriate reference sections

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   complies with inline citations and reliable sources guidelines

   C. No original research:

   no evidence or indication of original research

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   addresses all aspects with adequate breadth.

   B. Focused:

   excellent job balancing relevant details within the guidelines of summary style

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   No issues regarding neutrality vs. bias/POV

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   There is protection on the article dating from June, however, this was because of petty vandalism from anonymous IPs, not because of edit-warring or content disputes.

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   All images appear to be properly tagged. On an lightly related note, I love the mixed onions image in the lede. Excellent photograph.

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Images relevant to article subject and content, Captions sufficient.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Thank you for tackling such a large, ambitious work on a subject most of take for granted.

Huge infobox with synonyms

Editors are edit warring to add a huge list of synonyms to the info box. Per MOS:INFOBOX and MOS:LEAD these should be removed from the info box and located elsewhere in the article or in a daughter article. Read the section "Purpose of an infobox" in the MOS. A long list of obscure Latin names is not a "summary" of information in the article, nor are they key facts. You may think they are important facts (and 99% of readers will disagree) but they are not key: they do not define what an onion is or why it is important, or its place in the plant/food domains. Remember this is both a plant and a major food. Wikipedia is not Wikispecies. Would the botany enthusiasts (@Joseph Laferriere:, @Peter coxhead:) please restrain themselves voluntarily or I shall seek admin/MOS help in restoring this article to a readable state, and this article will lose its GA status. -- Colin°^Talk 08:22, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

When you removed the list on the 14th, part of your comment was "The info box is not there for 101 varieties". I thought it a pity to lose that list so started a page "List_of_onion_cultivars" to put them on, then added a link from the main article. I then realised that I was misled and these are not varieties, but indeed just a list of synonyms for exactly the same species. So I amended the page and left the list of synonyms in it, but as a collapsible list so that they are not normally visible.

But, as you may note, I am a little confused ;-). If the article is just about a species of plant, Allium cepa then a list of synonyms on the page is quite appropriate (and I think normal for plants and animals with a speciesbox, eg see Dog). This is useful, if for no other reason, in that searches using these alternate/old or erroneous names will find the right species page quickly. But the page is a little dual purpose because the name 'onion' does not just refer to the common or 'garden onion' but to many species which are certainly not culivars of Allium cepa. I think that the page "onion" should not be setup as a species page at all, but a page about vegetables known as onions and include all types. Of course the garden onion "Allium cepa" would be mentioned in the initial paragraph, and a link to its species page Allium cepa would take you to that particular species. Also "List_of_onion_cultivars" also needs to be reworked. --Tony Wills (talk) 09:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I have been putting the synonyms in the taxobox because other editors in this very space have urged me to continue doing so. I tried limiting it to synonyms that have indeed been used fairly recently, but one editor insisted I should list everything. Rumor has it that these lists can be made collapsible, reduced to a statement "Click here to see the list of synonyms" or something to that effect. This is fine with me, but I do not know how to set this up. Having separate pages for "onion" and "Allium cepa" might work too, if you can decide what information should go where. The word "onion" or "wild onion" is often used to refer to many of the hundreds of other species in the genus.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 10:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC) Incidentally, I found another problem on the onion page last night, i.e., someone referring to the umbel as a "head." Any botanist would cringe on seeing that.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 10:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Well thinking about the purpose of the page is certainly useful and worth exploring. However "that's what other editors are doing" or "that's what Wikiproject Plants has agreed" or "that's what other articles do" aren't strong arguments and don't address the MOS issues with an infobox containing non-key information. This would indeed be considered trivia by many. I know the botanists think this stuff is useful and that is a common problem on Wikipedia where subject-experts have a different view of importance than the readership, only a tiny minority of whom will be subject experts. Experts tend to be far more interested in classifying things than lay readers, which is why so many articles get classification (taxonomy) details at the start in direct contradiction to advice on article structure which encourage writers to start with the easy and interesting stuff and move the hard/dry stuff later on. Trying to use an infobox for all possible common facts about species/plants is not an optimal solution. Collapsing it has accessibility and printing problems. Please can someone give a good reason why synonyms should be in the lead section (which is where the info box is) and so important that they cause the photos in the article to bunch up? -- Colin°^Talk 12:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

My dearest friend Colin, with all due respect, I don't think your remarks are completely fair. I agree to a certain extent with what you say, but I have been informed repeatedly by the reviewers that everything must be done in accordance with Wikipedia policy, and that they will edit or delete anything that does not. Indeed, they have done that to my pages many times. So I must listen to what they say, whether I agree or not. Now, as for synonymy being up front and readily visible, yes, there is a very good reason for this. I can cite numerous examples of the same plant being called different names in various recent publications. By "recent," I mean published within the past few decades and still being used by people (lay people and botanists alike) trying to identify specimens. So a person holding in her hand a book identifying a plant as Plantus hypotheticus tries to find this on Wikipedia, to be redirected to a page on Florifera hypothetica, needs some reassurance that this is, in fact, the same critter. Question then becomes which synonyms to list. As I said, I suggested listing only names used in print within the past few decades, but I was overruled by higher powers and instructed to list all names published since 1753.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 13:02, 17 March 2014 (UTC) POSTSCRIPT: Just now I looked at the onion page and note that someone has collapsified the synonymy list. Looks good. And by clicking on "edit" I can see how it is done.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 13:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

@Colin: As I've written before, I agree with you that over-long lists of synonyms in taxoboxes cause problems. However, as Joseph Laferriere notes, it's equally important that synonyms are made clear: if you review WT:PLANTS and its archives you'll see that there is regularly a problem with two articles being created about the same plant under synonymous titles. I suggest that in future you start by assuming that Wikiprojects are likely to have good reasons for their guidelines and be willing to explore what these are before you assume they represent some undesirable WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.

One reason for listing synonyms in the taxobox is that it's a taxonomy infobox. It's generally sensible to keep taxonomic information together; e.g. frequently it will have the same source(s). However, it isn't a case of "one size fits all", and there may be a better way of presenting the synonyms. For example, you could have moved them to a multi-column list in the Taxonomy section. Simply deleting this information, as you did, seems to me a very aggressive act. In this specific case, I think that Tony Wills' solution may be the best one. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Listing the synonyms in the text was one thing I got criticized for when I first started doing this. I started doing it the way I was taught to do it back in the olden days of yesteryear when information was printed on paper instead of in bits on a screen. People complained that this was hard to understand. "Inscrutable" I believe was the term someone used. I repeat my opinion that some of the older names are better left off, especially invalid or illegitimate names. The chances of anyone reviving a name invalidly published in, say, 1789 are zero, since use of invalid names is contrary to the ICN anyhow.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

You haven't answered my question, rather just given illogical circular reasons like "because it is a taxonomy infobox". I don't know who these "reviewers [who say] that everything must be done in accordance with Wikipedia policy" are but Wikipedia has no "policy" on article layout. It has guidelines in the form of MOS which are general good advice and as linked above at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS should not be contradicted by Wikiprojects. If Wikiproject plants wants to create official guidelines that two screenfuls of latin trivia belongs in the lead then I suggest you try and get that accepted by the community as a whole -- you won't.

Let's be clear, the primary topic of "Onion" is that it is a food plant. Of the thousands of people who lookup this article daily, how many are looking for "Allium cepa var. tripolitanum"? I'll give you a clue -- try a google search for it and you'll appreciate just how unimportant that phrase is to the world. Compare searches for "Allium cepa" and "Onion" also and you'll get some perspective on the latin naming vs the everyday food. If you want to help people searching for a term find the correct article, that is what redirects are for. The searcher will get the friendly message that that term redirects to this article, at the very top of the page. Remember Joseph, that this is not Wikispecies. It is not Wikipedia's primary purpose to be a plant identifier and categorising database. We must balance different needs according to our audience, which is 99.999% not confused about what an onion is. Some of your arguments might be fair for a small plant article where the plant is of ornamental or botanical interest only but this is a major world food. I can't really begin to emphasise enough that having the taxonomy section as the first in this article will cause the majority of our readers to give up. Like equations, italic Latin words will turn off many readers. Do you really think that "Allium cepa var. solaninum - Alef" is one of the first things a reader needs to know and would even understand what that phrase means? Or rather would they like to know, in English, how onions fit alongside shallots or about the different varieties they see in the market? Peter, you say that synonyms are "equally important" (though I'm not sure to what) but then give examples of editors making mistakes. This is a common fault with wikiprojects in that they tend to be inward looking -- solving problems for other members of the projects. Yes your job would be easier if all plants had all these categorisation things up the top because you all speak Latin fluently. You aren't thinking from the reader's point of view. Find someone who isn't a botanist or keen gardener and ask them what they'd want to learn from an encyclopaedia article on "onions". They may well want to know the official Latin name for the plant but I can guarantee that you will find nobody outside your special-interest-group who wants to know about synonyms. Why then are they in the lead, even collapsed. Is your list of synonyms even complete? Can someone explain to me the "Allium cepa var. XXXX" entries -- how is there any confusion with them as they all start with "Allium cepa"? That just looks like a list of varieties to me. I'm sure if I looked in a gardening catalogue I'd find other varieties. Yes I'm no gardener so my confusion as to what this list actually tells me should inform you as to what the general reader is getting from the list -- absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever. -- Colin°^Talk 08:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

99.999%? Wow. So very kind of you in taking the time to sponsor that expensive-sounding survey and to share the results with us. We have had discussions on these talk pages before about this sort of thing. Consensus is that Wikipedia should reach out to a wide variety of audiences. Just now I took another look at the onion page. There is information on nutrition, cuisine, pest control, medicinal uses, cultivation methods, storage, etc. The article even mentions the use of onions by Roman gladiators. There is also a very nice table of contents so that anyone not interested in Roman gladiators can skip over that part. Similarly, people not interested in the taxonomic information can very easily skip over it.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 09:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The important parts were "It is not Wikipedia's primary purpose to be a plant identifier and categorising database." and "[It] is a common fault with wikiprojects in that they tend to be inward looking -- solving problems for other members of the projects.... You aren't thinking from the reader's point of view." PS: Please indent your responses like everyone else does. You are making it difficult to keep the discussion threaded when you put every reply you write at the top level of the discussion as if it's a new thread.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

• I think we can agree that a wikiproject is needed for the huge task of maintaining consistency of presentation across the enormous number of plant/animal species pages. Ultimately we need to get consensus between these maintenance projects and the more general manual of style. Tilting at one windmill (Onions) when there are literally thousands of similar taxoboxes is a waste of time and energy :-). To persuade a wikiproject to do things differently is something that needs to be discussed on the wikiproject talk pages, otherwise one has to fight the same reactive battle over and over (as new editors with similar expertise, and expectations of species page content, take over from those that have been disheartened, reverted, warned and blocked ;-)
• I personally think that species taxobox content should be automated, but I'm not familiar with the mechanisms available: wikidata? wikispecies? All the info in these boxes (apart from illustrations) is part of some database out there and is something manually copied across to each article. At the very least it sounds like the job for a bot. The difficult bit is to agree what we want to include in the box.
• The next question (which like the above has probably been discussed many times before) is do we in general want to separate articles about species from particular instances of that species of particular cultural interest. Eg it hardly seems sensible to have a taxobox for the article 'dog', this is not a species article about Canis lupus, its habitat, distribution, diet etc. Canis lupus doesn't even redirect to the article. I feel we need a specific guideline here (there may already be one ;-) and a little pseudo taxo template box to deter people from adding the fullblown one. So in my thinking; like dog, onion would be about the domesticated entity, not a species. The separation allows for the different emphasis and amount of detail in specific areas, it means less conflict but some duplication. --Tony Wills (talk) 09:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Separate pages for different purposes, all linked of course. As for automated taxoboxes, they already are automated to a certain extent. Some taxa have smaller "species boxes" that require only information about that particular species. The Wikicomputer fills in the higher taxa in the taxobox. Great system, but only some genera have that. Me? I generally do a cut/paste of the taxobox from a related species so I don't have to fill in everything by hand. As for the synonym listings, there are on-line databases such as Tropicos and The Plant list that have that info, although they sometimes disagree. Tropicos is better at listing contypic synonyms, The Plant List better for heterotypic synonyms. Automating that sort of thing might prove difficult, though not impossible.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 11:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Several points here.

• @Joseph Laferriere: The WP:PLANTS guidelines on synonyms are just that, guidelines, and specific cases need to be considered individually. Thus the taxobox has the option to include subdivisions, but these are rarely listed there – "see text" is much more common. If there are a lot of synonyms, and/or if they need significant discussion, I would put them in the text, with a section wikilink in the taxobox.
• Dealing with food plants is often a difficult issue. Sometimes separate articles seem to work. Thus there's an article at Banana and one at Musa × paradisiaca. This works because we know quite a bit about the parental species from which cultivated bananas were derived, so that there is botanical information to be covered which is somewhat separate from the food. Other times there doesn't seem to be enough distinct information for two articles: thus Malus domestica is a redirect to Apple. Malus domestica is simply a Latin name given by Linnaeus to cultivated apples, so there aren't really two topics. "Onion" seems to me to fall into the second category: what would there be to say about "Allium cepa" which is not about "Onion"? However, I'm open to a split if it could be made to work.
• There is an automated system for taxoboxes, which is used, for example, thoughout the Amaryllidaceae. If you look at the taxobox in this article, you'll see that it doesn't give the hierarchy above Allium – this is picked up from "taxonomy templates", such as Template:Taxonomy/Allium. However, classifications are opinions, not facts. WP:PLANTS has explicitly rejected the idea of picking up taxonomic hierarchies from any source outside the English Wikipedia. We need to be able to revise classifications based on reliable sources (and in some cases show different opinions). Currently we use the APG III system for flowering plants, but this could change (if there's an APG IV for example).

Peter coxhead (talk) 16:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Peter coxhead: Thanx for the very thoughtful note. I am all in favor of flexibility. Indeed, that is what separates science from other approaches, a willingness to change and adapt with new information. I think back to some of the things I was taught as an undergrad, ideas considered "quaint" now. People often forget that all these taxa are human constructs for human convenience. Nature knows nothing of botanical families, and certainly the plants have no opinion of what families they're in. As for onion, perhaps anything you say about Allium cepa will pertain to onions, but the converse is not necessary true. The Plant List accepts 918 species Allium, many of which have common names of "onion" preceded by some sort of adjective. Joseph Laferriere (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

On the last point, this is where I often disagree with the way the five principles at WP:AT are interpreted. "Onion" isn't, in my view, a sufficiently precise title since, as you note, so many Allium species have this word in their name; also the word is often used to refer to the genus. Something like "cultivated onion" would be better for A. cepa. However, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY is regularly given preference in the English Wikipedia even when this results in ambiguity. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Joseph, sarcasm doesn't help. It just shows you are being dismissive rather than trying to understand the viewpoint from a non-botanist looking at what is essentially a food-plant article. Trying to fit WP:PLANT mindset into all articles that deal with plants isn't going to work when some are foods, some make drugs, some are weeds, some are pretty flowers, and so on. Nobody on the talk page of a given article has to persuade a Wikiproject to change its general guidelines. Let me repeat that. Nobody on the talk page of a given article has to persuade a Wikiproject to change its general guidelines. Wikipedia absolutely values the contributions of editors at individual article talk pages. If this means a given article deviates from your precious regularity, then you need to deal with that, not fight it. None of you want to answer my questions about the various synonyms listed on this page. Perhaps because they will expose the trivia aspect of the entries. Has any of you done what I suggested, and ask a non-botanist/gardener about the subject? Would any of them even know what a synonym was? "Maintaining consistency" or automating article generation are but small aspects of overall article creation. This must be balanced against the specific concerns of the subject (such as where one plant has a huge number of synonyms and its readers almost certainly did not come to the article to learn about them). Please explain how this synonym list fits any of guidelines at WP:INFOBOX? Oh, and yes the article on the food plant article needs to be called "onion". The fact that the related plants require an adjective tells you that. Wikipedia targets a wide audience but I'm afraid that targeting that wide audience doesn't mean that because plant scientists are part of that audience and happen to have formed a wikiproject, that their preferences must be honoured and information should be targeted to them at prime lead/infobox level. You guys really need to get a grip on what 99% of Wikipedia's audience is. Satisfy them first and then find a way to meet the needs of the 0.1% in some way that doesn't upset the huge majority. Frankly, having such an important food-article littered with lists of obscure Latin terms, or discussing its taxonomic history as the first section shows just how out-of-touch the article writers here are. Have you actually looked at that section -- why is this list there shorter than the list in the info box? Are both just an arbitrary selection of trivia? I don't suppose I'm going to persuade such determined-to-ignore-the-reader article-writers as you so I leave these comments in the hope that a gifted writer may come along an revise all this mess to oblivion. -- Colin°^Talk 15:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Creating an us and them divide is not productive, I presume we are not trying to drive people away from contributing, even if they are experts in their field ;-). We all try to add our bit of knowledge, it takes yet another kind of skill to communicate well though. The point of wikipedia is not just to tell people what they already know, but help them learn more, to expand their knowledge and even their thinking. Yes people coming to onions may not expect to find info about species synonyms, but if they are interested in where the plants came from, and the attempts to define relationships between the various species/varieties/cultivars then that info will be interesting. Even if they came here to find out how to stop onions from making them cry, are we doing them a dis-service by giving them more than they thought they wanted to know :-). Perhaps the main deficiency here is that the relevance of "synonyms" is not clearly articulated here or on Synonym (taxonomy) for the average (50% ? ;-) reader. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Colin - I rather resent the statement that nobody has even tried to explain this to you. Others and I have tried to explain things several times.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 19:20, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean "nobody has even tried to explain this to you". I see a lot of justifications as to why you guys think synonyms are vital and must be in the lead, all of which imo are weak. I see nobody answering my specific questions. Look through my comments above where I have asked questions. Are you going to answer them or not? -- Colin°^Talk 09:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I contest that an infobox is actually part of the article "lead", the code is physically located there but it presents as a sidebar, a reference, not a bit of prose, just a list of key facts. ("next to the lead section" - MOS) --Tony Wills (talk) 11:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• In all articles the infobox simply lists key facts about the subject, which would probably be boring to put in the body of the article, in a lot of ways it is all trivia! As a pseudo random example look at the infobox for any company (eg BBC), I expect that for 99.999% of readers it is irrelevant and not read. There may be grounds to argue for their removal from all articles, but encyclopedias do contain tables of facts and figures, and standardised infoboxes add to the visual structure and continuity of related pages - it gives the reader a sense of what to expect of the page even before they read anything (even without examining the contents of the infobox, assuming they are familiar with other wikipedia pages already :-).
• I often think that the info box on articles is a sidebar that is only slightly more useful to most readers than the left hand sidebar (the one containing links to many, many things irrelevant to their reading of the article). I expect that in addition to the 75% of contributers to this discussion, 99.999% of readers of this article are quite happy with the infobox with a collapsed list of synonyms. The reason I suggest going to discuss it on the project page is that it wouldn't make sense for the standardised infoboxes to contain different categories of information on different pages in some random way (eg omit it, if it is too long). --Tony Wills (talk) 06:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Tony, read the WP:INFOBOX guideline and you will see that it is very much not a dumping ground for trivia that most readers will find boring. That WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is no argument. The overgrowth of infoboxes on WP is an acknowledged problem, so you will find problem infoboxes frequently. Let's wander round the vegetable isle of the supermarket: potato, cabbage, leek, carrot, asparagus, bell pepper, parsnip, shallot, white mushroom, sweet potato. Do any of these have 101 latin synonymns in their info boxes? Guys, accept that your readers do not care about this and find some other way, further down the article, to include it if you must. This is a topic only experts and trivia enthusiasts care for, and absolutely does not belong in the lead, first section or infobox. Read the MOS guidelines. They do not agree with you. -- Colin°^Talk 09:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about a dumping ground for trivia, but that, almost by definition, the content is trivia. It contains little "key facts" about the subject, somewhat disjointed from the text. Only about 0.1% of readers are liable to read through it (usual statistics source ;-). I was not providing examples WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, but just demonstrating that normal infoboxes for any subject contain trivia to most people not part of the in-group for that subject. All the species name and taxo-tree stuff is trivia to someone just wanting info on their vegetable or fruit that they're having for dinner. Your examples may have no synonyms (is that a random sample?), perhaps because many use the "cultivars" template that has no space for synonyms. Perhaps the Apple article is a better example, a small list of synonyms, the only question is what is the selection criteria of those synonyms - that is what needs to be agreed by any project maintaining taxoboxes. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

You said "in a lot of ways it is all trivia". Absolutely not. The content of an info box must by definition not be trivia. It is "key". Not "little key facts", but "key facts". There is no such thing as "little key facts". You are confusing "seldom known" with "trivia". Trivia, by definition, are "pieces of information of little importance or value" -- they are things that could be left out of the article without great loss. Let me quote, since none of you seem willing to read the MOS: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose [to summarize key facts], allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content.". In your edit summary you said " we can all find examples to suit, but that wasn't the point". Well actually I didn't just try to find examples to suit. I listed all the supermarket veg I thought off till I tired of listing more. Really, onion so far is the only one I can find where synonyms are listed in the info box. Still nobody answers my questions. Why is "Allium cepa var. multiplicans L.H.Bailey" mentioned in the infobox. What on earth does it mean and why should anyone care. I Google for this and all it tells me nothing other than that it is a synonym. This suggests to me that this is not in fact information but merely data. Therefore it belongs in a database such as exist for plants, but does not belong in an encyclopaedia article. -- Colin°^Talk 14:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that we have answered your question as to why the synonyms were initially added to the infobox and why we objected to your deletion.

1. This is not just an article about the food "onion" but also an article about the species Allium cepa.
2. The guidance from WP:PLANTS for species articles suggests putting the synonyms in the taxobox. Note that Apple does this – however, there aren't very many listed there.
3. Species synonyms are names currently considered not to refer to different taxa, i.e. which should not be used as the titles of separate articles. It's desirable to include them somewhere in the article to help prevent incorrect article duplication and to help in fixing it if it does occur. Thus L. H. Bailey's name Allium cepa var. multiplicans isn't now accepted as a name for some entity different from Allium cepa as a whole and if it appears as an article title in Wikipedia should only do so as a redirect to Allium cepa.

In this specific case, I don't think that the general guidance to include synonyms in the taxobox should be followed, and I have said so. The current compromise is a collapsible list of synonyms. This can be changed, but it would be sensible to finish the discussion below about the content of the article first. For example, if the article were just about "bulb" or "common" onions, a cultivar box could be used instead of a taxobox. Currently the article covers all the cultivars of Allium cepa, so only a taxobox works. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The collapsible synonym list seems perfectly fine to me. These lists do serve purposes and not even only for specialists. But they don't need to be big piles of visual clutter. However, what you've said about Allium cepa var. multiplicans isn't necessarily correct; if it has been retained as a cultivar group, e.g. an Allium ceps Multiplicans Group, there's no policy or technical barrier to it being found notable enough for its own article, in which case the old name should redirect to the new one.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

India

In India, it is illegal to grow or posses onions. The article should reflect this fact. 69.65.91.78 (talk) 05:32, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I haven't found any reference to such a law, and ample evidence to the contrary. John Alan Elson★ WF6I A.P.O.I. 04:52, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

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Origins Persia/Iran

There is a lot of literature suggesting Persia/Iran as the earliest origin of cultivation for Onions. I will integrate this information into the article soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.121.72.1 (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Please stop deleting section on widely cited view that ancient Persia was the origin of cultivated Garlic. I have not made an suggestion in the article that this view is unanimous (as evident by the inclusion of the following paragraph on the belief that garlic was as old as 5000BC). But there are several university and scholarly sources that suggest Persia as a possible origin, and for that, it is only appropriate to include by edit. 50.121.72.1 (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Changes have been made concerning the uncertain geographic origin. There are no authoritative reviews about it. If you know of one, you should register to be a user and make the edit with a solid citation per WP:RS. Also, when other editors dispute an entry, there is lack of consensus, meaning the conditions of WP:CON apply. Continual reverts like you and your possible collaborators did are discouraged. Coming to the Talk page was the right course of action. --Zefr (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Onion seeds

I have added a detailed closeup image of onion seeds. This image has been adjusted in brightness and contrast to bring out as much detail as possible. However, the distinct shape of the onion seeds is only fully grasped in a stereo view, which is available to those who wish to view it. This image is very close to what you would see through a stereo microscope. John Alan Elson★ WF6I A.P.O.I. 05:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I like a onion but many persons do not like it much. there should be a part about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.103.81.34 (talk) 14:31, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Apicius

Under the 'Origins and History' section, Apicius is listed as "one of the first authors of a cookbook", but our article on Apicius states that to be a misattribution, the Apicius cookbook having probably been written centuries after the man died. This should be brought into agreement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.220.221.39 (talk) 21:10, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Medical use

I was looking for some kind of information like this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24915405 in the article page, but found none. I'm not fluent in English and pretty shy about editing in English WP though, so I'm hoping someone else will want to! Annaxt (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Eye irritation or why do onions make you cry

I searched google for: why do onions make you cry. Didn't find a wikipedia result in the list. Then I searched for just onion and went to wikipedia entry and searched for cry. No hit in the text, yes in the references. In the hope to increase google hit on the topic of "why do onions make you cry" I added it to the section header. There is probably a better way of doing it, so please improve. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I removed the or and just made it "Why do onions make you cry" for section header. Hopefully that is deemed better. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Eye irritation is a better section header. Onions do not make you cry. They can cause eye irritation that can lead to eyes watering which is not crying. ~ GB fan 20:20, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Quote from crying:

Crying is the shedding of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, pain or a physical irritation of the eye.

How is it not crying? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

That is the definition of crying in that article. I disagree with that definition, but it does not make any difference what definition we use. "Why do onions make you cry" is not an appropriate section header. The section is about the eye irritation from the chemicals released when an onion is cut and as Staszek Lem says below not everyone has tearing when they cut an onion. ~ GB fan 10:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Daniel, your title is not in style of Wikipedia, but rather a pop-science article. If you want "onion+cry" searchable, please add 'crying" in the text in a smooth way. BTW, onions do not make me cry. Shall we have a title "Why onions do not make you cry" Staszek Lem (talk) 21:02, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

thickly?...

From the article: "Onion sets are produced by sowing seed thickly in early summer in poor soil and the small bulbs produced are harvested in the autumn." I'm not sure if this is a mistake, and it's supposed to be "quickly" or something? I'm not sure how "thickly" makes sense in this context, unless it has a meaning I'm not aware of. I think it should also be "seeds" instead of "seed." -2003:CA:8736:6047:A410:D89C:F79E:B495 (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done. That section needed copyediting. Thanks. --Zefr (talk) 19:05, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Was it really cultivated in China?

I can't verify the claim in the source. Its Chinese name suggests it was introduced recently, probably during Age of Discovery. I suspect the claim is from a conflation with scallion, aka green onion. --Yel D'ohan (talk) 02:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore terms like "scallion" or "green onion" are hard to pin down to a particular species or cultivar of Allium. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Where were onions domesticated?

This article could use some history on the origin of onions. Where were they first cultivated? Were there multiple domestication events on different continents? pburka (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Addition about medicinal properties

A sentence that the onion has medicinal properties is being edit warred into the article. The sentence has 3 sources. None of these sources are adequate to make the assertion that it has medicinal properties. All the source are claimed to come from the US Government. They are all hosted on the national library of medicine but none of them are actually from the US Government.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1473646/pdf/calwestmed00007-0046.pdf

   This is from the California and Western Medicine Journal Volume 63 No. 1 (July 1945). In an editorial comment the source does say that volatile organics with antibacterial properties do come off of onions. It also discusses that the antibacterial properties are only from the vapors. Cooking and acidic solutions above a pH of 7.5 destroy the properties.

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12410539

   This is an abstract from a paper and it says that onions are reported to have beneficial health properties. The abstract does not say they do have beneficial health properties.

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24915405

   Another abstract from a paper that says that onions are reported to have beneficial health properties. The abstract does not say they do have beneficial health properties.

None of the sources say that the onion has beneficial health properties and since they don't it doesn't belong in the article. ~ GB fan 12:27, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Don't say there is no further evidence for antibacterial activity since 1931 ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.240.73.55 (talk • contribs)

There are no credible antibacterial or any other anti-disease effects of eating onions. No WP:MEDRS review supports discussion of gaining health benefits from eating onions. Zefr (talk) 16:20, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Allergies in onion - citation 44?

Upon reading this citation it concludes an allergy to zucchini not onion - and does not mention cooking to denature the onion proteins, though presumably this is the reason that cooked onion doesn't affect people the same way. Needs new citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xythan (talk • contribs) 04:26, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Onion extinct in the wild?

This article claims that the wild ancestor of the onion Is now extinct In the first line of the history section but that claim seems extremely shady to me. There are tons of wild allium and domestic plants often look very very different from their wild counterparts. Of the sources cited one is an amazon link and the other makes no reference to onion origin other than saying there is a high diversity of Wild allium in Central Asia. Other sources I’ve found making reference to onion extictiob say something like it could be extinct in the wild or it could be From one of the many many Wild alium species. I think that the extinct in wild part should be deleted, the citations seem to be for a different claim in the sentance 2601:602:80:1650:0:0:0:D66B (talk) 04:57, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi IP, could you please post here on the talk page some of the sources you mentioned in the above ? Thanks.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:33, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Added citation needed to address the assertion of extinction. Someone will eventually delete the assertion or cite proper attestation. Kent Dominic·(talk) 16:45, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The problem is one of poor phrasing. Abductive (reasoning) 18:36, 22 April 2022 (UTC)