I noticed that there was a request earlier for a Tree Identification category, but I think we need to expand that into a category on Plants or, Plant Identification. Before I start listing off articles that deserve to be moved into such a future cat, I have to make some suggestions to influence possibility of the formation of a new category.
There are literally hundreds, if not close to thousands of articles on plants, we just need to look at the Gardening category and Houseplants category to see that. But, there are still quite a few articles out there that do not belong in either the Gardening nor the Houseplant (nor Planting and Growing or Garden Pests and Weeds) categories that are kinda sitting on the wikiHow shelves with no particular category that they really deserve to be in. Those are the articles I’m talking about.
Now here’s the deliberation. On one hand it’s nice to have a category on Plants, but we don’t want a whole cargo-ship-load of articles that are already in the Gardening, Houseplant, Planting and Growing, Garden Pests and Weeds, etc., categories to be put in there, do we? Not when they’re in the categories they should be in and deserve to be in. Of course if there’s some such articles that can have Plants as a secondary category that should be alright, but it really should be for all those *other* articles not in all the aforementioned categories that go in there, including those requesting how to identify certain plants (be it species, groups, types, etc.). (Funnily enough, after a lengthy search I’m finding those *other* articles are scarce. Thoughts?)
My second deliberation is about Plant Identification. I’ve counted at least 20 articles alone that would fit beautifully into that category, and there’s no real need to make a Tree Identification category at all. I mean, it could be a sub-cat, but then you’ll get some wondering why there’s no sub-cats for Grass ID, Aquatic Plant ID, Forb (“Wildflower”) ID, or Non-Tree Woody Perennials ID. We might see those in the distant future, but not now. So, I’m totally game if Plant Identification would be made as a sub-cat for Plants category. As a matter of fact I’d be tickled pink if that happened, because as a range nerd and a plant ID fanatic I’d be happier than a pig in mud working in that category, and I think a lot of people would be pleased too to find a category that’s all about ID’ing plants. It’ll be different from something like a ask-and-ye-shall-receive-answer sites where people can post a picture and ask, “What the heck is this plant?!” in the Plant Identification category like what Quora.com
has, but it’ll be effective in bolstering education on identifying plants, and create a lot more interest in it too. I’d love to see this site have something similar to encourage more folks to put up some “How to Identify X Plant” or “How to Tell the Difference between X plant and Y Plant,” articles that many people can expand on and work with.
I also hope that it creates an initiative for WikiPhoto to actually put photos of particular plants up and not just drawings. I’ve been seeing some criticisms from some folks about how some of the pictures on the ID articles aren’t accurate enough, and I tend to agree with them. But that’s another topic entirely.
So, here is a list for Plant Identification category:
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For the Plant category, any article in the aforementioned categories would suffice.
But, after looking through the Search function on this site, I got to thinking that Plant Identification category may be more realistic. Where should it go? I’ve no idea. The Plant category is certainly a very broad category, and with many, many articles on growing, caring for, planting, seeding, harvesting, killing, watering, and more growing and caring for plants and barely any more generic ones on just plants. So is a Plant category still worth setting up, or a waste of time/energy? I’ll contend that a Plant Identification one is worth putting up, but I’d love to hear some thoughts on the Plant category.
Last thing: I’ll vote on setting up a main category for Identification, that way Plant Identification may have a place to go. But, in the meanwhile…
Sorry for such a lengthy post, but I’d love some more thoughts and discussion on this. Thanks! <!–EndFragment–>
