Talk:Taxonomy of Liliaceae/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tylototriton (talk · contribs) 20:24, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll make this my first GA review, then! From a brief look over the article, it seems comprehensive and well-researched to me. I think however that it needs some reorganisation and tightening-up. I will comment in more detail on individual sections over the next days. Tylototriton (talk) 20:24, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Finding the right width for a table is difficult, especially accomodating multiple devices. In fact it is often impossible to make everyone happy! On a large screen the small table looks awkward. What device were you looking at it on. I will try a variety of screens.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

In present version on a Blackberry 10, I can read the tables by scrolling from left to right, but not the cladogram. However both work fine on a tablet. However I don't think the Mobile version allows one to go back and compare with previos versions. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:12, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm on a laptop and the first table and the cladogram display OK as they are. The second table however is too large for this screen, but I acknowledge it's difficult to find the right size. But if unsure I'd rather go for more whitespace on a larger screen rather than having to scroll on a smaller screen.

I'm copyediting and collecting points for the review, but this will take me a few days, don't have time to work on it in one piece atm... Tylototriton (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

OK I will try and follow the action on a laptop as well as a PC --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Note: all refs in reflist= have been converted to sfn, leaving only two reference styles, inline and sfn --Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:37, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments

@Michael Goodyear: here's my comments by section, finally. I noticed we don't agree on all the copyediting I did, so maybe let's work on the bigger issues first and smooth out the rest later. Tylototriton (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Not so much a matter of not agreeing as trying to make it even better, between your ideas and mine. No deal breakers! In fact I was looking forwad to a constructive, informative and stimulating discussion of the relative merits of those particular points! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

General

 Done

• Liliaceae as singular (Liliaceae is) or plural (the Liliaceae)? – Not consistent.

Let's go with ICBN 18.1. "The name of a family is a plural adjective used as a noun" and stick with it --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

In the context 'Liliaceae family', the context determines the case in English grammar. If referring to an impersonal unit, singular, but as a collection of individual units it is plural.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I scanned the page for 'Liliaceae', but could not find any exceptions to those rules - am I missing something? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:04, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Seems OK to me now. Tylototriton (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Quotation marks: sometimes ' ', sometimes " ", not consistent. The Manual of Style recommends latter.

That's always a tricky one depending on whether one is using an actual "quotation" from someone, or emphasising a partiular 'word', and very difficult to search on, vs. apostrophe's. You must have a very good eye. Hopefully I caught the one or two with 'single' quotes.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:02, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• -ize or -ise? – Not consistent.

Another difficult one, on which MOS does not prefer one over another. I'm British educated so prefer British spelling - I caught a couple of zs and changed them back to ss.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• It would be nice to illustrate some of the defining characteristics (or such that were once thought to be defining) with photos, e.g., the trilocular fruit or the six stamens. It seems the Liliaceae article has some good ones; this one here shows a fruit.

True, the difficulty being the morphological diversity - images added, but I think it requires some corresponding text--Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Also families are now defined genetically rather than morphologically. It also throws out the layout of the page, and will require some juggling, such as making horizontal to prevent sandwiching--Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The gallery looks good to me. I just increased the width slightly because the captions overlapped. It still fits into my small notebook screen. Tylototriton (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• S.s. and s.l.: Spell out and link sensu stricto/sensu lato or better even, use "in the strict/broad sense". Otherwise too technical for most readers.

You will notice I have tried to align this and other pages with the scientific literature where ss and sl are widely used. My original intention had been to follow standard practice on introduction of abbreviations by a link and spelling out in full at the first mention. I have added a number of further links and plain english, which should avoid any confusion.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Since there appears to be inconsistent use of these terms in the Liliaceae literature, they have been largely relaced with more specific terms such as "sensu Dahlgren", and a table provided to specify exactly what Dahlgren etc. meant by that term. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:00, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

It's much clearer now. There's some duplicate sensu lato and sensu stricto links now, they should be dealt with in a final duplicate link check. Tylototriton (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate link check performed. If one applies the paragraph or section rule they are not duplicate except in the sense that sensu lato and sensu stricto require separate linking so long as there is no separate page for each target.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:51, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• List-defined references would make the artice much easier to edit, punctuation for instance is difficult to fiddle with between refs. But of course WP allows both.

I see you have also addressed this further down, so I will respond to both points here. The longer one is on WP the more one's style evolves. This page was constructed from a number of sources over time and consequently ended up with three different reference methods, which are currently being resolved. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "list-defined" but for the purpose of this discussion I will take it as {{reflist|ref=<ref =name>citation</ref>}}. As you say WP allows of a variety of methods without insisting on any one style, but encouraging consistency. I agree "list-defined" is easier to maintain than in-line. However I also notice that many FA pages now prefer sfn, including the Kafka example referred to on WP:REFB which has other advantages. Consequently all "list-defined" were recently converted to sfn. At present over 80% of all 100 references are in sfn format, and that conversion should be complete by the time we finish this review. There could be some fine tuning after that particularly for edited multi-authored books. Consequently there should be no overlap between the two lists, as you suggest below. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:46, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Refence conversion to sfn now 100% --Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't familiar with that format, but of course it's fine to use it as long as it is consistent throughout (which is the case now). Tylototriton (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Is there some information about pre-Linnean descriptions of Liliaceae? History of taxonomy tells me that that e.g. Theophrastus already wrote about genera such as Narcissus.

Interesting question - you may notice that Taxonomy of Narcissus (GA) is also one of my articles. But Narcissus is a genus, not a family. So yes some genera were known prior ro Linnaeus, and Lilium has a long history but this is a page about the taxonomy of a family and the concept of family dates to Adanson (1763), which he called order. Therefore it seemed to me that going back further than Linnaeus would not be helpful, because the concept of Liliaceae had not been thought of. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:21, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I get your point. Tylototriton (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Lead

 Done The important thing here, is that it must accurately reflect the following text, and cannot be edited seperately --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Calyx": since we're talking about tepals, this should be perianth, I suppose?

Interesting point. That is how the family were originally defined (see direct link) "calix...sexpartitus" etc, and so should stand. Our understanding of perianth is later than the 18th century. I clarified that in the main text and placed "calyx" in inverted commas. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm OK with that. Tylototriton (talk) 14:27, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• "progressively expanded": should be "was expanded by taxonomists" to avoid confusion with evolutionary diversification.

I would be very surprised if anyone made that mistake - I have clarified the language --Michael Goodyear (talk) 09:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Catch-all" taxon: link to wastebasket taxon. This is not necessarily synonymous with a paraphyletic taxon!

Interesting point. I provided a direct link in the text to Kubitzky's discussion of this point as well. "catch-all" is by definition paraphyletic (see WP page), which is I agree is slightly different to synonymous, so modified language to not directly imply synonmy --Michael Goodyear (talk) 10:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• "recognize all of its constituents and separate them": a little awkward (separate from what?), why not use "(properly) circumscribe"?

Separated from each other - reworded for clarification --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Evolution: I do not think this belongs in this article, see remarks for that section below. Also, the timing of Liliaceae vs. Liliales divergence doesn't really make sense (Liliales cannot be younger than Liliaceae).

I will respond to both remarks here. What is your authority for that statement? Evolution and phylogeny are intimately related, and both are included as subsections of Taxonomy, which these articles are following. Also evolution is included in other Taxonomy pages.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:23, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

In any case the literature on this has been rereviewed and updated, and the section revised accordingly. Any inconsistencies were due to differing definitions of Liliaceae and other subfamilial taxa by different authors, and this has been addressed.

--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I have also added a diagram and reconciled this text with main Liliaceae page --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll start a new discussion below, as this seems a major point to me. Tylototriton (talk) 14:27, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• "Core Liliales probably arose as shade plants": "Core Liliales" and "Liliaceae s.s." too technical for a lead. Mention the precise modern groups involved (the modern Liliaceae includes Calochortum).

Probably simpler to omit altogether, since they evolved in parallel --Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:13, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Last paragraph: mention and link subfamilies and tribes in brackets. "600 species" sounds like this concerns Lilioideae, but is probably the number for Liliaceae as a whole? Correct - done --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:11, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
• Suggestion: Instead of a single image, what about a panel showcasing the diversity of Liliaceae? I've played around in my sandbox, what do you think?

Interesting idea, I have used it before, e.g. List of Narcissus horticultural divisions, but I don't think it will work here, because I have used a single image to demonstate the type species. Also those images all appear further down the page - or did, I have replaced a couple. I will think about it. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

The box with the image of the type species looks good to me. However it seems like a workaround to include a taxobox (I've seen the discussion on the talk page). I am neutral on whether a taxobox belongs in a "taxonomy of ..." article, but I think here the box should only contain info directly relevant to taxonomy, i.e. nomenclature, placement and subdivisions (see discussion on evolution above). Tylototriton (talk) 14:27, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Correct. It is now an infobox and only contains taxonomic information - unless one excludes evolution - see separate discussion --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Pre-Darwinian

 Done

• Adanson's seven genera, in brackets: why Fritillaria in brackets after Imperialis?

Because Imperialis no longer exists, it has been subsumed into Fritillaria--Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, I just clarified this a little with an insert. Tylototriton (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• "De Jussieu": use only "Jussieu".

I could not find a MOS guidance on this, but all the articles on this family use Jussieu after the first mention of the full name, so that seems reasonable. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:35, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• French terms (Liliacées): italicise consistently.

fixed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• "used the presence of six stamens, a single style, equal stamina" – is "stamina" here a plural of stamen? If yes, not consistent and duplicate in that phrase.

Either is acceptable. Gray used "stamens", so I will stick with that. Fixed. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Second paragraph too long in my opinion. Part of it could be combined with the shorter, first paragraph.

I wasn't sure whether you meant to just rearrange the paragraphs or that there was too much material. I tightened the first two paragraphs up and rearranged them into two paragraphs of equal length --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:33, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I was talking in terms of rearrangement, not material. Looks good now. Tylototriton (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Monocotylédonés: is this French or Latin? If French, no accent on last e; if Latin, abandon accents altogether.

It is French and that is precisely how Candolle spelt it --Michael Goodyear (talk) 08:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, if this is how it was spelt in the original literature, we should keep it this way of course, but it certainly doesn't correspond to French pronunciation... Tylototriton (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

If one means contemporary. The French language also evolved over the last few hundred years --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• "with eleven alliances including the Liliales. This includes four Orders (families) including Liliaceae": This makes three includ* in a row, could be reworded.

Agree, reduced to one --Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:47, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Surely Lindsey did not really have a notion of monophyly vs. paraphyly in pre-Darwinian times? Stick with "catch-all" taxon or "artificial grouping".

I didn't mean to imply he used the exact word. To avoid any such confusion I have quoted his exact words. But yes, he was prescient. See also discussion under Lead --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• "This was the last major classification using the natural approach" – what precisely is the "natural approach"?

Expanded to include definition and contrast with phyletic systems, which immediately follow --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks good. Tylototriton (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Post-Darwinian

 Done

• "were German": Wettstein was Austrian. Use "published in German" or "in German language".

That was what I was trying to say, in contrast to French and British - a trend across 19th century science - clarified --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Eichler, Engler, Prantl, Wettstein: To be consistent, their names should be spelled out on first mention. Also applies to other authors mentioned later on.

In principle yes, and was up to this point, but these are the exception, because they refer to systems not authors. The links lead to systems, from which the authors can be found. Clarified. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:35, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Petaloid" – probably means having tepals instead of petals + sepals? The link to petals doesn't help to clarify this term.

No, petaloid refers to undifferentiated tepals that resemble petals. I revised all the articles dealing with petals and sepals to clarify this. The term appears numerous times on this page, and has been both defined and linked to the most appropriate page, petaloid monocots --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:25, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Amaryllidoidaceae" – Amaryllidaceae or Amaryllidoideae?

typo - already fixed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:52, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• "although this then created other problems": Not clear if this refers to the first (Cronquist's inclusion of Amaryllidaceae) or second part of the sentence (separated into distinct family by others) – and it would be nice to know what problems these were.

The second. Unfortunately, for now I cannot find the original discussion that led to that comment, so I think it is better to just delete it. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Dismembering Liliaceae

 Done

• "Lindley's concerns about the phylogeny of the Liliaceae": Use "poor definition" or something similar rather than phylogeny. See comment above on Lindsey's likely notion of evolutionary terms.

Agree --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:31, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Liliaceae sensu Tamura: Tamura is only introduced later in the text; this needs rewording or definition in brackets.

Basically was dealt with as part of the revision of the use of sensu, ss and sl throughout --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Modern APG classification

 Done

• Section title: spell out Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, perhaps italicise.

Spelled out, not sure italics would add to it? I do not see that used anywhere else. However in the world of plant taxonomy, APG is like Bible. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:46, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I would remove the acronym from the title, as it's introduced in the first sentence. I agree everybody knows "APG" in the plant taxonomy world, but not necessarily in the general public of this article. Tylototriton (talk) 14:52, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Seems reasonable --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Second sentence: "The scheme (...) on the internet in 1996". This detail about the APG is not relevant to the subject of the article.

Actually I think it is, because when Scandinavian work which was not that well known, was published on the internet to be available for all it was a significant step in spearheading the formation of the APG, which was led by Bremer and colleagues. I reworded it to emphasise this. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I see your point, clarification was helpful. Tylototriton (talk) 14:52, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Cladistic analysis of Liliales and families within former Liliaceae

 Done

• In my opinion, this should be combined with the two following sections as one section "Phylogeny" or "Phylogenetic relationships". This can then be subdivided into e.g. "Liliacae sensu lato within the monocots" and "Relationships within the family".

I was considering that anyway - done. I'm not sure there is enough material to justify splitting it, and 'within the family' is adddressed in sections dealing with infrafamilal division later. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:58, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Within the Liliales, cladistic analysis revealed the Liliaceae as one of four main groupings". This does not quite fit with the five families of Liliales in the cladogram (probably more, see later comment). I suppose this is not the latest finding; or is Liliaceae just part of one of the four main groupings?

There are only four main lineages unless you count the achlophyllous Corsiaceae which were not included in the earlier work cited, these were added later. Clarified in Cladogram and text. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

• Cladogram: Liliales and Asparagales contain more families than shown in the tree, they should appear even if they were not included in Liliaceae s.l., to demonstrate its polyphyly! This includes Tecophilaeaceae. Uvulariaceae belongs to the Colchicaceae. Xantorrhoeaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae should be collapsed, reflecting current classification (and simplifying the tree). The case of Agavaceae/Agavoideae can be explained in the caption. I could work on the cladogram if that helps, I'm still not quite content with how it displays.

Liliales: I'm not sure what your source is. The cladogram is based on APWeb, and is the same as the one on the Liliales page. Asparagales: Much more complicated - and contentious. Since the thrust of the page was Liliaceae, I wanted to concentrae on its history, and not get too complicated. However, to be consistent, this now reflects APWeb--Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Format of the cladogram is much better now. I see that the rank of several families in Asparagales is still unsettled, so let's keep it as on APWeb. Not sure if families not formerly included in the orders need special emphasis (^O), this only crowds the diagram in my opinion. Why "Arecales etc." instead of "commelinids" (a well defined clade)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tylototriton (talk • contribs) 15:01, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Other: I don't have a problem with shifting that information to the legend --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:36, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Arecales: Good question. There was a reason, but I don't recall now exactly what that was - Meerow. Taxonomy and Phylogeny: Liliaceae (2000) was the original source of the diagram, where it appears as here. However I have changed it to reflect APWeb, APG III and Lilianae.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:30, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Changes to family structure in APG III

 Done

• This is not directly relevant to the Liliaceae. What's important is that former Liliaceae are now in other families/subfamilies, and these are given in the tree and/or summarised in the previous section. Taxonomic changes involving those families can be explained in their articles. I'd remove this section completely.

Actually it was removed quite some time ago - to be precise it was moved to another page where it is more relevant. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Phylogeny

 Done

• This treats the relationships within Liliaceae sensu stricto and should be a subsection of one phylogeny section (see comment above).

In general I have treated phylogeny within taxonomy articles in two parts to simplify discussion (though clearly they are interrelated). Here I am primarily discussing circumscription of the family, which differentiates it from other Liliales members. To sharpen the distinction I have moved any material dealing with relations within Liliaceae to the next part that specifically addresses taxonomy at the infrafamilial level.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

• "relative degree of monophyly": I don't quite understand what this suggests; either the family has been shown to be monophyletic or not. There is no contradiction between monophyly and high morphological variability within the family.

I don't see this phrase - it must have gone in an earlier rewrite --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:21, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I got mixed up with sections – or have they changed in the meantime? It's the first sentence of the fourth paragraph in "Subdivisions – suprageneric subdivisions". Tylototriton (talk) 15:11, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. No, not 'relative monophyly' but monophyly relative to earlier polyphyly. Language clarified, similarly - genetically monophyletic, morphologically diverse. No contradiction. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:06, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Evolution

 Done This should not be part of an article on taxonomy. I also note this is a copy of the same section in Liliaceae (where it is properly placed). Perhaps retain information that characterises clades within the Liliaceae (shade – open areas, bulbs – rhizomes) and include that under Phylogeny; the remainder should be removed (also concerns the corresponding part of the lead).

Addressed above and section in Liliaceae rewritten, as previously noted --Michael Goodyear (talk) 08:11, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Note the Wikipedia entry on Phlogeny - Phylogenetics ... is the study of phylogenesis, or the evolutionary history, development and relationships among groups of organisms --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:25, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Subdivisions and genera

 Done

• This section is a bit crowded with the four images at the right: on a small laptop screen, they push down table 2 quite a bit, and on a larger screen, the genera list spills over the pictures. I'd recommend either arranging them horizontally, e.g. as gallery or multiple image, or moving them to a panel in the lead (see comment there).

Again I have tracked this page on a variety of platforms including a small laptop (Acec Aspire Notebook), and curiously I am not seeing the phenomenon you describe. Nevertheless there are a variety of techniques for dealing with this, which I have used in other articles, including the horizontal. It seems to me that the most rational appraoch is to incorporate them into the genus table, a technique I used in a Featured List of another taxon--Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not very happy with this solution: it inflates the table, adding a lot of whitespace and making it difficult to get a quick overview of the taxonomic subdivisions. I'd suggest having a gallery or multiple image with only one image per tribe/subfamily rather than one per genus... Tylototriton (talk) 15:31, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Well I think that this is more visually attractive and has been widely used, but there are a number of possible workarounds, including collapsing or hiding the table. In this case I have reverted to the original design, and added a gallery as you suggest. The more elaborate list is now a separate page - which it was a long time ago. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Genera: this section could be simplified a lot, it's not really appealing this way. The most important part – the genera currently recognised – should be mentioned first. Then, all genera formerly included could be combined in one list, perhaps marking those of the Cronquist system with e.g. an asterisk or a ^C. I'd also group them by (current) family, and drop orders and subfamilies for simplicity (easily accessible through the families). Author abbreviations should be small. I could reformat the list with a little scripting, just let me know. Also, since it's quite long, it could be hidden by default. Thus simplified, we could also drop the third-level headings.

It has been bothering me too - I inherited it. It was not helped by poor and inconsistent column formatting. I reduced the authorities and removed common names, and harmonised the column formats. The current genera are adequately treated elsewhere. Actually all list one is Cronquist so flagging them would be redundant. Consequently I reformated the two lists and hid them --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:26, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, flagging them would allow to have only one list instead of two, which would make sense to me (list of all genera once included in Liliaceae). The hidden format is certainly better, but I still think that giving the complete families and orders each times makes the list confusing, with a lot of blue text. That info is easily accessible in the respective genus articles. I'd suggest only one list and flagging (i) those included by Cronquist, (ii) those still included in Liliales, (iii) those still included in Asparagales. Tylototriton (talk) 15:31, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

There are several possible ways to approach this. In this case I have substituted a sortable table, which allows the user to view it as either two separate tables or one single table and also yields useful information on the target taxa in the realignment. Actually a quick check shows that the information you mention is not easily accessible for many of these genera, although I did a bit of editing at that level to correct a number of issues. I reduced the links and hence blue text to the bare minimum. I would like to stress that this is very important information, not easily found elsewhere, and that the dismemberment of the Liliaceae is critical to understanding much of the taxonomy of petaloid monocots.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Looks good now, nice work. The table could perhaps even be moved to an article of its own, or combined with List of Liliaceae genera (which, containing only the currently accepted genera, is not that long). Tylototriton (talk) 20:43, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it could be. The real question is whether it should be. On balance I would say no - it is not of sufficient interest on its own to justify a page of its own, and it really only makes sense in the context of the history of the taxonomy. As for the other suggestion, combining it with the other subpage, I think that would be rather confusing, two tables that would need considerable textual description to reconcile the two tables and explain their relationship. So after much thought I would favour the status quo. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Etymology

 Done This orphaned sentence could be easily included with the first description of the family under History: Pre-Darwininan. A ref would be nice; it seems there is one in the Lilium article.

It is not an orphan - this is where the template requires Etymology to be inserted. Refs added. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Which template are you referring to? I feel that any one- or two-sentenced section is orphaned and should be avoided when it can be included in another section. And to me it perfectly makes sense to include that info with the first description of the family. Tylototriton (talk) 15:35, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I was bold and moved the relevant information to the first sentence of "Pre-Darwinian". Much shorter. Tylototriton (talk) 11:49, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The template in question is the Wikiproject Plant template which forms the basis of all taxon articles. While not a deal breaker, I looked at the changes very carefully, and reverted it pending further discussion, because I felt that the information was lost burying it in Pre-Darwinian, besides which it is the taxonomy of the family, not the genus that is under discussion and Linnaeus did not name the family, Adanson did.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I still feel a separate section is not needed, but in the end it's a matter of taste, so I'll leave this up to you... Tylototriton (talk) 20:45, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning, but I think that having considered all options the user is best served, in terms of finding the information they are looking for, that a separate section serves the purpose best. Besides which, as is it might encourage others to later expand it. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

References

 Done

• I don't quite understand the system of two reflists: the second one contains articles just like the first. Couldn't they be combined in one list? That would make it easier to find a particular reference.

See under General --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Second set of comments

Some remaining points after the second review, in addition to the comments given above. In general, I feel the article is very close. My main issue is the "Evolution and biogeography" section (and related information in other sections). Tylototriton (talk) 16:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Pre-Darwinian, second paragraph, last sentence: The correct Latin plural for tribus is tribūs (see Wiktionary); did Candolle really use tribi?

Interesting point. Technically you are correct, but botanical literature rarely uses plural forms. Candolle was writing in French not Latin though, however the French plural he used was actually tribus, and I have corrected that. Curiously tribi does occasionally appear in the botanical literature.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:46, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Table 3 is redundant in my opinion. The additional info in that table (= some genera were treated in different families by Dahlgrehn or Tamura) could be easily included in table 4, so there would be only one "genus table". Cladogram III could perhaps be moved to the beginning of the section (and genera in that cladogram should be italicised). The whole section is very chopped up through the tables and diagrams.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here, other than reductionism. Table 3 arose because frankly there is no other way to make any sense of the frequent use of sensu Tamura, Dahlgren or APG in the botanical literature, which has been reproduced in the text here. I don't see how one could read the text and make sense of it without Table 3, which occurs in one of the pivotal papers on the topic. It took me a long time to sort it out in my own mind. To amalgamate Tables 3 (historical) and Table 4 (current) would seem to me to be extremely complex and messy, but I would be interested to know how you would visualise it.

I think people would look here primarily to understand the most modern subfamilial classification (Table 4), and secondarily to understand the frequent references to sensu Tamura etc. To conflate them would not be helpful to them.

I'm also not clear what you mean by "chopped up". One of the purposes of figures and tables, in addition to serving as an aid to understanding and summarising text is to break up large amounts of text which can appear intimidating and "dry". --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:01, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

In any case I have done some major restructuring to improve flow, which I think makes it less "choppy", and by separating tables 3 and 4, less redundant. I had thought of removing the APG part of table 3, but I think it provides continuity and comparison.

Cladogram: Correct, that was an oversight - italics added--Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion. I've combined table 3 and 4 plus the gallery. As you said, most users will be interested in the modern classification. I think this way it is easily accessible, while the details on former classifications are still included, just less prominently. The title can be shorter, I think, since APWeb is given as a source and all differing placements also have their references.

The problem in this section is that the tables plus figures don't break up a large amount of text but create very short paragraphs that are sandwiched between large tables, which is not very appealing, I think... Just a question of text/table balance.

Cladogram: I just saw that the use of Tulipeae (which is not accepted anyway, I understood?) makes no sense here, because Gagea as sister to Tulipeae makes Lilieae s.s. paraphyletic... Tylototriton (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see any changes to Tables 3 and 4, or gallery - was it in your Sandbox? Anyway I have considerably modified both tables so there is not really any overlap anymore. Table 4 is strictly sensu APWeb.

What one means by "accepted" is a matter of judgement snce there is no gold standard at the subfamilial level. Virtually everyone in the phylogenetic era accepts Tulipae, but for some unexplained reason is absent in the APWeb. Hopefully the additional text clarifies this.

Thank you for pointing out the accidental anomaly with reference to Gagea. I had not given sufficient weight to more recent work on Gagea, and it is now accepted as being included either in Tulipae, or in its own tribe of Lloydieae. Tables, figures and text have been revised to reflect this.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I made the changes in my sandbox. Tylototriton (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately I did not see that, and the thought only occurred to me much later. Interesting, but in view of all the subsequent changes, I think it is a little late to make that switch now. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:58, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Well I still think combining that info in one table would be a good thing; carrying over the information added lately should not be too difficult. But I let you decide. Tylototriton (talk) 15:08, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, I compromised and followed your suggestion and combined the gallery and Table 4. I saw your use of footnotes in your suggested table, which was interesting. However when looked at from the perspective of the average user, I can't see that working. When I sat down to write this article, I was completely confused by all the apparently conflicting terminology, and it only made sense when I drafted a table like Table 3 for myself. A similar one occurs earlier for suprafamilial classification (Table 1) and Table 3 deals with subfamilial classification. It is for precisely these reasons that taxonomists so frequently resort to such linear tables in their publications.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:42, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, I understand your reasoning. Combining the gallery and table 4 was good, though. Tylototriton (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• I maintain that evolution and biogeography do not belong in a taxonomy article, at least not as separate section. Taxonomy is about definition and classification of groups. Certainly, phylogenetics (which falls under evolution) is an important tool in taxonomy and should be mentioned where it supports (or not) classification. But more general evolution (such as estimated ages, areas of origin etc.) is independent of taxonomy and should either be placed in the Liliaceae or in its own article. I acknowledge that evolution is included in other "taxonomy of ..." articles, but I am not happy about this and don't think it is justified.

I think we have to agree to disagree on this one. Obviously all these divisions are arbitrary and artificial to some extent, especially in the modern era of understanding. They are merely imposed to provide some order. Whatever the merits of your argument (and I am not saying there are not any) I am afraid the decision has already been made elsewhere by consensus at the project level, and therefore cannot be decided on a page by page basis. As I have stated before our modern understanding of taxonomy is based on all of the above considerations which feed into it and help to understand its basis. I think that too much chopping up of the subject would not be helpful, and that this section enhances the overall value of the page. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree we disagree. If there's a project-level consensus, I'll follow, reluctantly though. I was unable to find the relevant discussion on the plant project page, could you help me out? Tylototriton (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I am afraid that the nexus between consensus discussion and subsequent revisions to guidances is not well developed in WP, and such a hiatus certainly would not be tolerated in my Department. I have waded through 66 archived pages of discussion. It appears that following this discussion (see also just above it 17 Question) the guidance was revised and evolution was included under taxonomy on 23 May 2009. While the topic may have come again, the only subsequent discussion I have unearthed was in 2011 here. While not everyone agreed with the policy, there was no collective will to change it either and it has remained. You are at liberty to add to those discussions or start a new one, but I doubt it will change much, and as I have indicated, the implications for all the plant pages written since May 2009 represents a considerable logistical hurdle. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I've read the discussion, but it applies to taxon articles. In such articles, I can understand that one would include evolution under taxonomy, because anyway there are many ways to present such broad information (e.g., you could also combine Distribution and Evolution, or Ecology and Evolution). In a "taxonomy of" article such as we have here, I'd expect that the article stays focused on essential taxonomy and doesn't include information that is perhaps complementary but would be better placed in the taxon's main article.

Here, we have a quit long article that presents a quite complicated history of rearrangement. I think therefore it is essential to omit unnnecessary details (GA criterion 3b). Mentioning phylogeny, i.e. if groups are monophyletic or not, is obviously relevant to the taxonomic rearrangements, but areas of origin, divergence ages etc. are not. They could easily be moved to the Liliaceae main page. My reasoning: if someone is interested in the biogeography of Liliaceae, would they expect to find that in Taxonomy of Liliaceae?

To be short, I don't think the template on taxon pages applies to a "taxonomy of" page, and I think GA criterion 3b here is not quite fulfilled. I will ask a second opinion on this. This is my only issue left. Tylototriton (talk) 15:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it could be focused if the article is renamed to "Taxonomy and evolution of Liliaceae". There, it can focus on both subjects into a single article without the need to create a new one that may be unnecessary if a simple task such as this can be fulfilled. Burklemore1 (talk) 05:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Re: Burklemore1. But that would fly in the face of tradition - I am collecting together articles with the title "Taxonomy of ...." under one category. I do not see any with a title including Evolution, which would make it look like an exception

That seems a sensible solution to me. I can see biogeography as part of evolution, but both not really as part of taxonomy. Mentioning "evolution" in the title would thus solve the problem. What do you think, user:Michael Goodyear? Tylototriton (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I suspect the crux of the disagreement here is the concept of "taxonomy". If the focus was "the current classification of Liliaceae" I would agree with you, but it is not. It is a comprehensive article on the taxonomic approaches to the family.

"Unnecessary" (3b) in this context is clearly subjective and has to be balanced against "Broad in its coverage" (3). But this is not a question of detail, it is a question of how the current taxonomic classification came about, which it did, through divergence, a process known as evolution, and it did so as as the earth's structure changed resulting in different taxonomic entities arising in different climes. Furthermore our evolutionary knowledge is no longer primarily dependent on fossils but on the same phylogenetic analyses that create the cladistic structures that we call taxonomy. Ergo evolution and biogeography are intimately involved in taxonomy.

Technically you are correct that the discussion I pointed you to involves "taxon" not "taxonomy", but as per WP:SS this page is a hat from a taxon page section and therefore logically, the same principles apply.

You ask how someone interested in the "biogeography of Liliaceae" would find the discussion on this page. Let us adopt a systematic approach to answer this question. Most people with that question in mind would logically look for an article on Liliaceae, and on finding this page would see a discussion of biogeography under the heading of that name, but they would also see that it is a summary section and that there is a link (a hat) to the more extensive discussion on this page. Furthermore if you enter the terms "Biogeography Liliaceae" into a search engine, it not only directs you to this page, it directs you straight to the section titled "Evolution and biogeography". Of course one could further split this page and move the evolution material to a new page, but that would not meet the criteria for splitting at this stage and as per WP:SS would still require a summary discussion on this page and would not resolve the matter at hand.

I believe that answers all the points you have raised. The reason I have persisted with this is that it raises questions at a project wide level, that have little to do with this page in particular. If we are unable to resolve this apparent impasse, I shall have to raise it as a project issue.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:53, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think we need to discuss this at project level... I'll be quite busy this week but I'll take time this weekend to start a discussion. We'll keep this review on hold in the meantime. Tylototriton (talk) 20:37, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Revision

@Tylototriton: I have responded to all your points to the best of my ability, which amounts to an extensive rewrite. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:48, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Michael Goodyear. It seems the reviewer has nearly been inactive for a month (going through their contribution history, their last edit was done on 25 September). Is there any way we could contact this user? Burklemore1 (talk) 16:03, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Not that I can see from either the talk page or user page. The last communication I had was on their talk page on Sept 24 saying they were really busy. Maybe you could leave a message on the talk page. If that fails I assume one would need to request a second GA review? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:26, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see this. I have left a message on the GA nominee talk page. We'll see what they can do about it first. Burklemore1 (talk) 10:36, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

So I see, thanks. I left a message on the reviewer's talk page too--Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:21, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Why not e-mail Tylotriton? The facility seems to be available.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi all, @Michael Goodyear: Sorry for the delay. Since the article was rewritten in many parts, I wanted to take the time to review it thoroughly a second time, just didn't get around to do it until now. I still have some points that should be discussed, see above. Tylototriton (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Recent edits reviewed. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:14, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Further edits reviewed--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:04, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, I think we should come to a conclusion. I'm ready to promote the article pending the discussions on the genera section/tables and inclusion of evolution. I'll put the review on hold. Tylototriton (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I think I have responded to all your points now --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:42, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

GA promotion

Hello and Happy New Year, first of all! I've been following the discussion at project level, but it doesn't seem that we're close to a consensus; I had hoped that more people would join. As I don't want this article here to be blocked forever and it meets all criteria except that issue of evolution as part of taxonomy or not, I'm promoting now. With the reservation however, depending on how we resolve the taxonomy debate, that some content may be moved later on. I would like to point out that the only other two people that commented directly on this article, User:Burklemore1 (here) and User:Circeus (at WikiProject Plants) also felt that the evolution content is conceptually distinct from the taxonomy content. Apart from this issue, a very useful and thoroughly researched article. I'll be back to the discussion once I have a little more time (next weekend, hopefully). Tylototriton (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)