In the sentence "In my garden I have a red flowering gum" do you mean ...
"In my garden I have a Red flowering gum"
"In my garden I have a red flowering Gum"
"In my garden I have a red Flowering Gum"
or "In my garden I have a Red Flowering Gum"
The use of capitals resolves exactly what the common name is; and it stands out in the text as a name.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Granitethighs (talk • contribs)
Hi there! In most articles, the common names of plants are specifically stated, such as "Stylidium graminifolium, commonly called the grass triggerplant, ..." Because of this format, further mentions of the common name do not require capitalization. As a matter of policy on Wikipedia, capitalization of common names is usually discouraged, in line with many other manuals of style (such as Chicago). As for cultivar group, the capitalization of "group" in every instance was certainly unnecessary. I fail to see how the word "Group" in that article differed from the usage of "group" in meaning or how they could be confused. --Rkitko(talk)22:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Again Ryan
First of all thanks for making me welcome.
It is really interesting finding my way around Wikipedia and seeing what all the groups are up to. Perhaps over time I can make myself more useful (in a year or two).
A couple of questions - how do I add a picture of myself to my talk page? And, if in an article there are two mentions of the same reference does the same reference have to be put in twice (if you see what I mean).
Oh, and are you an Administrator? You were on to me quickly, do you monitor the pages in some way?
... and ... Stylidium is in my part of the globe. Are you an Aussie or have you been here (or New Zealand)? Short of sending you plants I might be able to help out with info on the ?135 species.
["As a matter of policy on Wikipedia, capitalization of common names is usually discouraged, in line with many other manuals of style (such as Chicago)".]
So be it: although for the reasons I gave you I prefer caps.
On the common names - I might be able to add some bits to the Wikipedia entries.
[As for cultivar group, the capitalization of "group" in every instance was certainly unnecessary. I fail to see how the word "Group" in that article differed from the usage of "group" in meaning or how they could be confused. --Rkitko (talk) 22:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
On the "group" thing. The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (latest edition 2004) recognises only two classification categories for "cultivated plants" - the cultivar and the Group. I'm sorry but capitalisation is the way Group is written -presumably to distinguish this specific kind of (classification category) group from any other kind of group. I agree it is not very satisfactory but in cultivated plant taxonomy there is a world of difference between a Group and a group. You can read all about this in the ICNCP if you are interested, starting at page xi, then try Article 18.1 before it is spelled out in detail in Article 20.
You've been very kind so I'll stop hassling you and do something more useful.
Roger, it's a pleasure to have you aboard! Wikipedia seems to attract many taxonomists, but not many horticulturalists. So welcome! When you have a chance, do take a look at WikiProject Plants, where we center our efforts to organize articles and sort out problems. I'll address your comments point by point so I don't lose track of them.
On adding an image: as long as you have proper copyright permissions (e.g., a professional photographer didn't take the photo), you can upload the photo to Wikipedia. See WP:UPLOAD - it's fairly straight-forward, but if you need help, let me know. To add the image after uploading, all you'd need to type is [[Image:File name.jpg|250px|right|Caption]].
On references: If an article is using the <ref> tags, there's a simple solution. Find the first occurrence of the ref and edit the ref tag data to include, if it doesn't, a "name" parameter. So turn <ref>Smith et al. 2005</ref> ''into'' <ref name="Smith 2005">. The second occurrence of the ref, instead of repeating all that info all over again, will simply be <ref name="Smith 2005" /> (The forward slash is important as it closes the tag). You can see WP:REF for more information, or as me for clarification.
Yes, I am an admin, but that's no big deal. I actually edited cultivar group before and had placed it on my watchlist.
On Stylidium: Actually, I've never been to Australia. It's on my list one of these days. I do wish I could go to this year's International Carnivorous Plant Society conference in Sydney, but the airfare is entirely too expensive for a lowly microbiology research assistant like me. I grow quite a few Stylidium and I need to get back to creating species stubs for the approximately 300 species (the list has been growing). I'm almost done with the Utricularia species stubs, so when I'm done with those I'll probably return to Stylidium. If you have an interest in Banksia at all, too, there's a WikiProject Banksia with some wonderful editors working hard on those articles. Any help I can get with the Stylidium articles would be appreciated. I always think I have most of the references I need, but I always find one more! As it is now, I'm hesitant to dive back in until the taxonomy is settled. Juliet Wege is currently working on the Stylidiaceae for the Flora of Australia series.
Well, I need to get off to work now. I'll be back to finish off a few thoughts and reply to your other comments. Cheers, Rkitko(talk)12:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I'm back after a long day at work. Well, not so long. Anyway...
On common names: I suppose I should have been more precise. The full set of manual of style guidelines can be found here: WP:MOS#Animals, plants, and other organisms. I suppose it depends on what school of thought you're brought up in. When going through my undergraduate school, all of my professors encouraged me to spare the use of overcapitalization and to use lowercase common names in scientific articles. I've met others who share your opinion and I can understand the point. Often, though, it comes down to the audience of the project. Most major manuals of style encourage lowercase common names and most other encyclopedias utilize these style manuals. If you ever want some late night reading, we've discussed common names ad nauseum at WT:PLANTS. Surf around our talk page archives and find the ones that list "common names" as one of the topics covered.
Thanks for giving me the appropriate articles and pages in the ICNCP code to review. I'll take a look at it and get back to you. Currently, I still prefer lowercase, since the context of the article makes it clear that we're discussing a Cultivar Group and not a group. I may change my mind once I read the ICNCP code. I do wonder how journalists using the various style guides that suggest lowercase have written about these items. Do they consider it a proper noun? I might also look at other encyclopedia entries to get a feel for the capitalization on this term.
And just some miscellaneous items, then: 1) I assume, then, that Roger D Spencer (talk·contribs) is also your account? Usually editors will maintain only one account. You've been using both recently; if you could choose one (this one? Or would you prefer the other?), that'd be great. Also, when replying to my comments, you can either reply here or at User talk:Rkitko under the appropriate heading (further down the page where I put your other comments). You had been adding comments to one of my user subpages, User:Rkitko/Opinions, which isn't the best place to leave me messages. Also, I noticed you added some information about you at the top of this page. Usually, that kind of information is placed on your "userpage" (see WP:USER for info), e.g. User:Granitethighs. You are, of course, welcome to manage your user pages as you wish! I think those were all the comments I had. Regardless, another hearty welcome and hope you stick around! We always need experts on Wikipedia. Cheers, Rkitko(talk)21:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the Channel Deepening project, I haven't contributed much myself - just a couple of photos. Regarding the Australian Flora, we are fortunate to have had the WikiProject Banksia team to set a benchmark for featured articles for Australian species and the treatment of a genus through a series of articles. The Stylidium set of articles also sets a good example. I've generally tried to build up a framework of Australian genera stubs with up-to-date species lists, to give a springboard for species articles (creating a lot of redlinks in the process!), and spend quite a bit of time taking and uploading photographs for articles. I don't restrict myself to the Australian Flora however, and involve myself in genus or species articles of all kinds. --Melburnian (talk) 10:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Useful stuff
Find the first occurrence of the ref and edit the ref tag data to include, if it doesn't, a "name" parameter. So turn <ref>Smith et al. 2005</ref> into <ref name="Smith 2005">. The second occurrence of the ref, instead of repeating all that info all over again, will simply be [1] (The forward slash is important as it closes the tag).
Problems with upload of Image:MeApril2008.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:MeApril2008.jpg. You don't seem to have said where the image came from, who created it, or what the copyright status is. We require this information to verify that the image is legally usable on Wikipedia, and because most image licenses require giving credit to the image's creator.
To add this information, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the information to the image's description. If you need help, post your question on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.
For more information on using images, see the following pages:
Thanks for uploading Image:HrtFl4.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.
License tagging for Image:HortFl3.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:HortFl3.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.
License tagging for Image:HortFl2.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:HortFl2.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.
License tagging for Image:HortFl5.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:HortFl5.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.
License tagging for Image:HortFl1.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:HortFl1.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation.
Hello, I would like to welcome you for joining this project. It's always nice to see an academic person starting to recognize the value and effectiveness of Wikipedia to spread educational message. I noticed that you have created Sustainability accounting, and it seems like it is almost ready to become a "Did you know" article. Being an DYK article is no easy job, because it will be placed on the main page of Wikipedia where a lot of people will see if (and some will come in to add things). I would strongly recommend you to aim for it, because only articles created in last 5 days are eligible to become DYK articles, but you can still add more things even if it became a DYK article. So please try reply back as soon as possible because we have to work under the 5-day deadline.
No worries, many academics are starting to learn and appreciate Wikipedia. I noticed that you already know the shortcut ~~~~ that will sign for you. There is another one that you need to learn, it is [[ ]]. If you try to link a page using words, say Sustainability, you type in [[Sustainability]] and the word becomes the link itself. I saw that you have announced your rewrite at Talk:Sustainability, I would recommend you to make a user-subpage (so you will create a page like User:Granitethighs/Sustainability or similar...) There is not much protocol against complete rewrite of an article, but try incorporate information currently in the article into the rewrite. And try not to change too much at once (so don't change the whole article in one single day). Changing it slowly allow others to read, digest, and comment what they read. This fosters mutual respect and allows the article to be more complete. I will respond to your queries on tomorrow, since I have a human anatomy midterm on tomorrow. OhanaUnitedTalk page00:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing, don't mark all edits as "minor edit" unless you're correcting a typo or grammar mistake. To change the setting, uncheck the box just above the "save page" button that says "this is a minor edit". OhanaUnitedTalk page05:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's my pleasure to guide new members in the community. Here's how you change from minor edits back to normal. Go to top of any page, click on "my preferences", click on "editing" tab, uncheck "Mark all edits minor by default" and click save. OhanaUnitedTalk page02:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
References
Ah, that's why I converted your references from <ref>url</ref> to <ref>{{cite web |url |title... }}</ref>. If you want to use a reference that will later on be used again, change <ref> to <ref = "give a name to this reference">{{cite web......}}</ref>. This is for the first time when you need to declare your reference. For second time and onwards, all you need to is type <ref name = "the name that you gave in the first reference" /></ref> and you're done. If you still couldn't get it working, just leave it to me. I'll convert it and show it to you afterwards. In Wikipedia, don't worry about making editing mistakes because someone else will come in and help you out. OhanaUnitedTalk page02:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes Wikipedia carries 2 or even more similar articles. For example, global warming is a featured article (meaning it's one of the best articles in Wikipedia) yet climate change is just a B-class article (meaning it still has flaws in it, such as not enough references, unclear or ambiguous statements, etc.) I'm still an undergrad so I cannot determine the difference between "sustainability" and "sustainability science". You are probably in a better position than the one I am in. My advice to you is to be bold and create fork articles. If someone thinks it's better to have 2 separate entries, then that's fine. If they think it should be merged, they will let us know. You see? This is how a global online community works and this makes the strength of Wikipedia.
And yes, Firefox is better than IE. It loads faster and safer (even though Wikipedia doesn't have ads which contain viruses and spywares). You can get more plug-ins for Firefox to assist your daily online experience. OhanaUnitedTalk page20:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I found it, it's called saturation overland flow. It turns out Australia has different terminology than in North America. Horton overland flow (HOF) occurs when precipitation > infiltration capacity, while saturation overland flow (SOF) has infiltration capacity > precipitation. Strange that Wikipedia has HOF article but not SOF.
I don't know what you already know in Wikipedia language, and I certainly don't know what you don't know. The help section should be something that you will visit. If you don't know how to create templates, boxes, tables, etc., feel free to ask me (though I admit I'm not one of the best people around here making templates and tables) OhanaUnitedTalk page17:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I've noticed that you've been adding your signature to some of your article contributions. This is a simple mistake to make and is easy to correct. For future reference, the need to associate edits with users is taken care of by an article's edit history. Therefore, you should use your signature only when contributing to talk pages, the Village Pump, or other such discussion pages. For a better understanding of what distinguishes articles from these type of pages, please see What is an article?. Again, thanks for contributing, and enjoy your Wikipedia experience! Thank you. StaticGull Talk 12:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've merged your lists into one single article. This article has absolutely no formatting. I'd suggest you do so. I've tagged all of your other articles for CSD and prod. YamakiriTC§07-5-2008 • 23:47:42
Because each letter does not need an article. I'm currently formatting your article. And in the future, please don't sign articles, instead use the inuse templates. YamakiriTC§07-5-2008 • 23:55:27
Yes I have. And I'm done making your one individual article. One article of this nature is good. Basic geography topics is a huge thing, unlike what you're doing here. Also, what I'm doing is far farfar more common than that, because the articles of this can all fit on one page. And really, no-one ever reads those pages. BTW I did read that article the first time. YamakiriTC§07-6-2008 • 00:06:14
Please do not make controversial edits such as you have been doing recently. Instead, edit the article. Please do not remove csd templates, instead follow the instructions for contesting a csd nomination. YamakiriTC§07-6-2008 • 01:13:25
For most images, you are absolutely free to use it in more than 1 article. However, there are exceptions. Some images (say... the company logo of Coca-Cola) cannot be used whenever we want because that image is copyrighted and considered as non-free content. If you want to know what the license of the image is, click on the image, and scroll down to the licensing part to see if it's a non-free content. It will be very obvious if the usage of the image is restricted. OhanaUnitedTalk page03:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
List of sustainability topics
A list containing items generally is a short sentence summary of what the term means. As for the difference between sustainability, conservation, and environment, it's best to explain it in each of those individual articles. By the way, have you considered to ask for help from outside WikiProject Environment? There are tonnes of people who are helpful even though they may not know a lot about this area of knowledge. OhanaUnitedTalk page16:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Susatainability category
I have reverted some of your additions to the Category:Sustainability since I feel that they were not appropriate. I have also answered your comments and questions on my talk page which will explain my edits. -- Alan Liefting (talk) -
Brief note
Just a brief note to say that I agree that merging those separate lists to List of sustainability topics is the best way to approach this, though more changes may be needed in future depending how it all works out (the suggestion of using categories is a good one, though care needs to be taken there as well). I've been trying to tidy up the various speedy deletion and PROD nominations (and one AfD). In future, my advice would be to slow down and look around and take advice before embarking on a lot of work that people might object to. Hope this was of some help. Please ask if you have any questions. Carcharoth (talk) 13:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your help and time spent on this issue. I will willingly follow your advice. When these lists were set up I believed I was simply following Wikipedia procedure as recommended in Lists of basic topics, especially in following the Featured example given for Geography and also well established through the use of the recommended template used there. I have learned my lesson and will proceed with caution.Granitethighs (talk) 00:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We can use the "move" tool located on the top (just beside the "history" tab). If you're uncomfortable with using the tool, you can let me do it. Alternatively, you can try it out and learn from it. I'll be there to help you out in case you made a mistake and needs to reverse the damage. OhanaUnitedTalk page23:02, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about... when it's ready, give me a notice so that I can quickly read over it, doing some formatting, and then let you know that it's ready to move. (P.S. It may turn out that you cannot move your page onto an already-existed page. This has to be done by administrators because of potential abuse and misuse. I know you won't misuse it, but even I couldn't change it because it's restricted by the engine that Wikipedia runs on. In this case, then it will be me that does the move) OhanaUnitedTalk page23:38, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yap, I guess my prediction was right. I updated some image captions.[4] Note that writing in all uppercase online is shouting, and considered as not very nice. After that, I moved the page from your userspace to mainspace.[5] Do you still need this orphaned talk page?
It's time for me to introduce to you on what is the assessment scale. If you click on Talk:Sustainability, you can see that it's currently rated at B. This is measured against a grading scheme. I will just summarize the grading scheme, and you can read that page for more info. All articles start off at "stub" level (represented in red), which means they are really short, perhaps just a few sentences that give an overview of the subject but no more than that. "Start"-class articles are a little bit longer, but incomplete and/or lack of reliable references. Then we proceed to C-class. This class just came out about a month ago. Articles in this class requires cleanup and a little bit more information. And finally, we reach B class, the class that I assigned for Sustainability. It requires some style rewrite or strengthening the lead section, but otherwise very good. Let's stop here for a moment before moving on. Stub, Start, C, and B class can be assigned to any article by anyone, including the content writer (so it COULD be objective).
Beyond these 4 class are an additional 3 classes: GA, A, and FA. All editors aim for getting articles to become one of these three classes. Why? Because these classes cannot be given out without going through an independent review process. GA requires an editor that does not involve in major contribution of that particular article (to avoid conflict of interest) to double check against the good article criteria before giving out this class. A-class is given out by projects which have its own independent review department. (WikiProject Environment does not have this department yet so we cannot give out A-class) And finally, we arrive at FA. It is "professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information" and "no further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible." The article is reviewed by many people for at least 1 week. They question and point out what needs to be added/removed/corrected in the article before you can achieve such status. Hence, it's everyone's dream to have at least 1 FA under his/her belt. But if all else fails, a GA is still nice.
All right, that's quite a lot of information for you to digest. I would have give Sustainability an GA-class already, but since I'm having a conflict of interest, I have to get someone else to review and check. I think you really earned this.
Barnstar don't make you superior over others. It makes you feel that your work is rewarded and feel better. And we only have one colour of star, the FA star (which is bronze, don't ask me why they pick those colour) OhanaUnitedTalk page02:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for leaving you to do the whole copyediting on Sustainability yourself. It's a shame for me if I don't watch the Olympics (especially not knowing how long it will be before China will host the Olympics again). I'm now back to do more editing on the article but you will definetely not see me editing as active as before. I'm about to start working for Ministry of the Environment (Ontario) starting next Tuesday and work all the way till December (as a co-op job). OhanaUnitedTalk page18:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sustainability article
I've had a go at creating a "measuring sustainability" section for the sustainability article, which seemed to me to be suffering from edit wars between the economists and the more ecological approach of your (excellent) work.
I have taken the liberty of incorporating a section of your existing work on the Milennium Ecosystem Assessment into this rewrite. My aim (I might be grandiose in this) was to point the way to a compromise between economy and ecology as a starting point, by focussing on measurement which is common to both.
Hi Granitethighs. I was hoping to contact you via e-mail, but note that you don't have that enabled. There is something I would like to discuss with your privately. Would you consider enabling e-mail? You set it from your "preferences." It allows for offline communications and users can even maintain their anonymity, if they prefer, by always responding from the other user's page. Let me know if you do set it up. Sunray (talk) 02:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sustainability, in its broadest sense, is the capacity to endure. [2] The term is frequently used in relation to biological and human systems, and refers to the capacity of a biological system to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future. [3] When applied to human systems, sustainability means using natural resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally.[4]
There is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to reduce human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits. [5][6]
Since the 1980s, through the influence of the United Nations global program for sustainable development, the idea of human sustainability has become increasingly associated with the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” [7][8]
^Cite error: The named reference Smith 2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Fowler, H.W. & F.G. (1964). The concise Oxford dictionary of current English. Clarendon Press, Oxford
^[1] Definition of sustainability by the Regional Ecosystem Office.
^European Commission(2005). [2]. European strategy for the sustainable use of natural resources
Look forward to working with you on Sustainability - however I will be extremely busy in the real world in the coming week so don't expect too much too soon.--Travelplanner (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have signed up now to assist with the Sustainability article. For now I am still working on my User:Travelplanner/sandbox sandbox section on sustainability measurement. So much new data is coming out - a new ecological footprint report and the UN Climnate Change Secretariat report on progress towards Kyoto targets in the same week - I could be kept busy just keeping up. Still very keen to hear your feedback on how this part is structured, including moving your content on the Milenium Ecosystem Assessment and on natural cycles into this section. Please note that the end section on "responses" is still a real mess.
Did you write Sustainability accounting?? It's really good - perhaps if I get too much content for "measuring sustainability" I could spill some over to there?
I agree, would you like me to add the synthesised versions to the talk page subpages? Or is there an issue with any of the editing I've been doing? I just got a bit sick of trawling through discussion after discussion and gaining aproval for every last little update, it was wasting what little time I can contribute here and taking far longer than it should be, especially the bigger sections. If people don't feel confident in what I'm editing or if they feel that any writing or reorganisation that I'm doing in this article is not apropriate then just tell me. I'm mature enough to handle critique and take the initiative with things that I am confident I can deal with in better ways. The history section was just an absolute mess and it would have taken an editing team months of discussion to achieve consensus on how it should be rewritten to the same standard as it has taken one person with a decent knowledge of sustianability in general, to edit it in a few days! Some of the bigger sections have to be fleshed out like this and reorganised into the new outline so they can then be added to the talk subpages and built upon there, adding further citations, rewording, adding any further content needed, spelling, images, etc, etc. This way we at least have somewhere to begin. I understand my edits in the sandbox don't achive consensus but I'm confident that they achive the best result and any unresolved disputes remaining will most likely be minor and can be worked through far easier than would have been able to beforehand. Nick carson (talk) 01:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sustain disambiguation
Hi, Granitethighs, thanks for noticing my work on the new Sustain (disambiguation) page. Feel free to edit its content and my definations of the sustainability articles. I admit I know very little about sustainability and only did my best when creating the page. My primary concern was to create a disambiguation for the word sustain, but in researching and finding all the sustainability articles I realized they couldn't be ignored. And thank you for the list of further definations. I'm sure it will help find more articles to link and improve the defination I listed at the begining of my article. Danleary25 (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sustainability article concerns
Hi GT, best of the season to you. There has been some recent discussion of editing problems related to the Sustainability article here. Your comments on Jehochman's proposed findings would be most welcome. Sunray (talk) 21:46, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sustainability Science
Happy New year to you too. I was away for a while in early December, and the debate had progressed somewhat when I returned, with one or two comments from Encyclopaedus, but mostly back and forths between yourself and Skip. I didn't feel compelled to re-engage as I felt the debate wasn't going anywhere without further external input (Even if wikipedia were a democracy, it's still a 50:50 argument as it stands). I have however been reading some of what's been said.
My issue with the article is with the fact that, while I have a strong grasp on what is involved in the practical application of sustainable practices in individual scientific practices, I don't really understand what exactly practically occurs in the separate field being described here. I believe one of my previous points asked plainly "What does a Sustainability scientist do?". Approaching an article on "Sustainability science", this is the question I feel I would like answered, what I believe should be broached in the article's content.
Without a solid outline of what is practically involved in the field, what either separates it from, or reinforces sustainable practices in other fields, it seems to dilute the concept of sustainability by littering the encyclopedic landscape with yet another vague definition of one of countless ideas linked to sustainability.
On your reference to the German article (I don't speak German so excuse me if anything I have gleaned from it is incorrect), it states Sustainability science is a "normative science". To me this seems to imply that it defines standards or boundaries to be applied to other areas, rather than to constitute an autonomous field. It goes on to state that it is "multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary", and that it addresses a "growing recognition across many disciplines of the need for synthesis and integration". This bolsters my argument that it is an integral part of all disciplines. I have never argued for the removal of the article, I simply think it's precise scope should be more clearly represented, whether in the title or the article content. As it stands, I don't really understand the bounds of the field; I feel this vagueness could lead to disenchantment of readers of the article.
All said, since my objection to the article seems to be borne out of ignorance or an inability to comprehend the scope of said field (many far more qualified individuals from Holland and Germany would I'm sure argue for the article), and also since I would feel more comfortable voicing my opinion on a subject to which I was actively contributing (something I would be happy to do in this case were I more well versed on the subject matter) I will withdraw my "vote" and ask for the tentative removal of the notice. olucideer01:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Granitethighs. You have new messages at Lucideer's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Hi, I was away for the last few days at a place on Vancouver Island where I had thought they had wireless Internet, but didn't. So I've had a real holiday. Let me know where you think I should be working to move the article forward. Sunray (talk) 17:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
