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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Hey man im josh via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Endemic flora of the Chatham Islands

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Endemic flora of the Chatham Islands (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 02:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Still New Zealand, but a bit of a diversion from my usual fare! The Chatham Islands are an isolated little archipelago with quite the unique set of flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to the islands and found nowhere else on Earth. From what I can tell, this is the first list of endemic flora to run here — I had to ask PresN to create the table template used here. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 02:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – I've since added images for Macromitrium longirostre var. ramsayae, Sarcodia linearis, Gigartina grandifida , Lessonia tholiformis, Landsburgia myricifolia, and Pyrophyllon cameronii. Ceramium chathamense seems to be fairly rare, and the only images I could find for it are from the Te Papa Museum, which licenses them under 'All Rights Reserved'. Thus, unless 1) somebody is able to contact the museum and somehow convince them to release it under their usual CC BY 4.0, or 2) someone else physically goes to the small fishing village of Kaiangaroa where it lives, it's not feasible to have an image at this time. Between this and the list itself suitably using an overhead map of the Chatham Islands as a visual aid for the rest of the list, I think this easily meets criterion 5(b). TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – What I'm unconvinced of is that this meets 5(a) or 5(c). For 5(a), every subject in this article is by convention considered inherently notable by nature of being an attested taxon (being generous, we'll leave out subspecies and varieties). Thus, "a minimal proportion of items are redlinked" should at most include a few of the items (if any), but I count 30 (a majority) which are redlinked, including a lot of species, and that's quite a lot of work to overcome that issue. Regarding 5(c), the alt text for the top image is fine, but the alt text for all of the images in the tables is just the singular word "plants". This provides functionally no information to a reader who can't view the image. This is similarly a lot of work, but it's necessary. I haven't examined the other criteria yet. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    From what I understand, that's as minimum a proportion as reasonable is redlinked; since species are notable by default, there's really no way around that (until those get created, but then it wouldn't be a matter of this article anymore). I think PresN would be the person to ask here, as they've had to finagle with redlink-prone species lists before.
    As for the alt-text, oops, I forgot to change it from the default. I'll go fix that. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    5(a) is pretty subjective, and in practice seems to be treated as "don't link a ton of non-notable items because it's ugly". I've only seen it brought up in the last few years for lists of only redlinked items. In this case, I don't think it's aesthetically offensive or inappropriate to redlink the plants that haven't been stubbed yet, so I'm fine with this list from a 5(a) perspective. --PresN 14:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't really have strong opinions on 5(a) (I don't think the alternating red and blue is bad from an aesthetic perspective as long as it's not for the sake of possibly non-notable clutter), and I'm less familiar with FLC, so I think I'm going to take a look at other criteria and re-evaluate 5(c) once the nom is done with that aspect. Appreciated. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 16:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Regarding criterion 4, I'm wondering about the possibility of sorting this list. The first column for the name is already pre-sorted alphabetically (I don't think somehow being able to sort by the nickname or locale would be useful, and sorting by the description year wouldn't be worth putting the authority in its own column), but two things I find I would like to sort by are the family (to cluster them together to better understand where things fit together taxonomically) and the NZTCS assessment (thus, for instance, I could look at all of the ones that are 'Declining' as a cluster). Thus, I'm not sure that 4 is met if there's no way to sort the table. PresN, do you know if something like that is easily implemented? TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 16:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheTechnician27: Not making a statement on if it should be sortable or not, but I added a "sortable=yes" option to the table template. --PresN 21:53, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case, that was my only objection to criterion 4, and I think it now unambiguously passes. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 22:58, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 6 – I think this is easily met (list just created, and there hasn't been any edit warring etc.).
  • 5(c) – Met except for alt text, which the nom has stated they intend to take care of (and must before the nom can succeed).
  • 5(b) – Met as well as we can (see above).
  • 5(a) – Seems ambiguous but fine subject to the above interpretation.
  • 4 – Met.
  • 3(c) – Seems met: (i) enough sources talk about the Chatham Islands' endemic flora for notability, (ii) this is close to but not a direct fork of flora of the Chatham Islands by nature of being only endemic flora, (iii) it has more than enough items, and (iv) a list this large can't reasonably be included in a related article.
  • 3(b) – I'll have to check for accurate sourcing and no close paraphrasing, but at a glance, all statements are at least sourced (the last sentence of the lead technically isn't, but the sourcing is in the table directly below it).
  • 3(a) – This one concerns me at present, not for its status right now but for its maintainability. The Department of Conservation says there are 47 endemics, we list 47 taxa, and a spot check of these shows that they're endemic. Thus, this seems correct right now, but I'm curious how this can easily be audited; is there an external list of all the endemic taxa? If not, then it seems like the process for auditing this article is 1) checking the number the Department of Conservation gives, 2) counting our list to make sure there's numerical parity, and then 3) checking each species' individual source to make sure it's endemic. That doesn't seem sustainable unless there's an outside list.
  • 2 – I think the species names in the lead should use common names (with scientific in parens) as much as possible, as five "bare" scientific names in quick succession will smack an average reader like a truck. It might also be worthwhile for the lead to briefly mention nonvascular plants since those have their own table, but only if it can be done organically. Lastly for now (this is just at a glance), the third sentence of the lead talks about divisions (I believe the DoC calls these "affinities") based on their relationships to mainland New Zealand, but this is never followed up on (I don't think it necessarily has to be, but putting it as the third sentence heavily emphasizes it).
  • 1 – Seems met: the lead is well-written from a technical perspective, and I see nothing wrong technically with the entries in the tables either. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:25, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Lecanora kohu is not a member of the flora (it is funga) and as such shouldn't be on a listing of endemic flora.
  • there are several unlinked authorities that have articles (de Lange, Heenan, Vitt, Agardh, W.A.Nelson) Esculenta (talk) 15:12, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Esculenta: I'm obviously inclined to trust your expertise here, but it seems very inconsistent whether sources include lichens under "flora" or not. On-wiki for example, Flora of Scotland (GA), Flora of Madagascar (FA), mention lichens. On Google Scholar, the phrase "Lichen flora" has nearly 20,000 hits.
    Great catch re: the authorities though. Got to those. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is because the adoption of the word "funga" is a recent thing, so pre-2021 (or so) sources simply wouldn't be using that term. Regardless, the first sentence of the lead links to the word flora, and that article makes it quite clear that it refers to plants, and mentions the other two analogous terms. If you insist of leaving it in, I think it needs to be made clear (in a footnote?) why an entry corresponding to the outdated terminology is being listed. Esculenta (talk) 21:47, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah nah, I took it out - I was more just confused than anything. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think too that there could be incorrect family names. This is just speculation as I've only found one incorrect one, but for example, Landsburgia myricifolia is in the family Sargassaceae, not Lessoniaceae. I'm going to go ahead and check all of these just to make sure this is the only one, since this was likely a typo from Lessoniaceae being in the row above. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:53, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, Austroderia turbaria's is ostensibly incorrect as well, so I am going to have to run through all of them. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheTechnician27: Added the alt text along the lines of previous plant FLs - just checking in, are the families all okay now? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 00:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I checked all of the families, and they're all good now. With alt text in place, nothing else I've mentioned is a deal-breaker, although I think we should say "46 are endemic to the islands" followed by a footnote that one of them is a fungus and thus we don't count it. The de Lange et al. source provides most of these species in the list, and what few aren't on there for one reason or another can be verified via the individual refs. I think that the points in 2 should be addressed but that these aren't enough to sink it below FL criteria.
    Finally, while I disagree with the interpretation that 5(a) only means not to include extraneous redlinks, I also think that enforcing the interpretation that all or most of them should be bluelinks if they're notable creates a perverse incentive for a FL nominator to create rushed stub versions of these articles with no regard to usefulness (whereas articles are ideally created by someone actually invested in them so they don't languish as stubs forever). Thus, while I think the above interpretation of 5(a) is contrived, I also see it as the healthiest.
    Bit of an aside, but I think flora of the Chatham Islands, unless it's substantially improved, should just be redirected here until someone's ready to make it any good.
    Support for now, although as this is my first review of a featured list candidate, I'm going to continue to check back in to see if anyone brings up something I've overlooked. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey man im josh

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Source review: Passed

  • Reliable enough for the information being cited
  • Consistent date formatting
  • Consistent and proper reference formatting
  • Appropriate wikilinks where applicable
  • Spot checks on 15 sources match what they are being cited for

Feedback:

  • All AlgaeBase sources – Remove "World-wide electronic publication, " from the reference
  • All AlgaeBase sources – Based on what National University of Ireland, Galway links to, I'd assume it's better to link to University of Galway. The footer on the site also has an image that seems to reflect that this is the proper name.

That's all I've got. Please ping me when the above has been addressed. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just following up @Generalissima. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:28, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hey man im josh: Oops, sorry that took me a second to get back to. That was actually cooked on to the template - but I corrected the template, and so corrected this. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Crisco

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  • Just a note for transparency: I am responding to a general request for feedback from the Discord.

Prose

  • flora of the islands was - Flora is plural in this instance, so "were" seems to make more sense
    • Fixed. - G
  • The flora of the islands was described from samples in the mid-1800s by botanists Joseph Hooker and Ferdinand von Mueller, neither of whom ever visited the islands, - islands ... islands
    • Fixed. - G
  • One endemic - is "endemic" a noun like it is used here?
    • Yep! - G
  • The archipelago comprises 40 islands and rocks. - Feels like a name wouldn't be amiss here
    • Added. - G
  • Although many of the endemic taxa are threatened due to naturalized flora and grazing by livestock, the populations of many species have rebounded since the 1980s due to widespread environmental regeneration practices. - Due ... due
    • Fixed. - G

Image review:

Due to the number of images, I will only highlight issues

All images have alt text. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 20:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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