First, note the spelling correction in the subject line. If you type in your subject lines, please double-check so that archive searches will turn up all the right posts. That's 50 years of editing speaking. I agree with Mary Sue's policy of waiting to see how widely revisions become accepted. As she says, they should be noted in an edit to the introductory paragraph of the relevant genus, with a citation of the appropriate article or monograph. I haven't followed the meanderings of the Scilla revision by Speta but must see what the current view is. Some of his revisions made a lot of sense to me as a mere observer and grower, such as Prospero for Scilla autumnalis and its close relatives, but others seemed gratuitous (and who wants to call a flower "Schnarfia"?). Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon, USA On 1/18/2020 7:52 AM, Mary Sue Ittner wrote: > > So now the truth is out and Martin's motivation for change is > revealed. I'd like to point out that I am the voice of reason and > experience having in the past made multiple changes that took hours of > time and then had to change them back when the changes were not > accepted. Think Scilla revision, Ornithogalum to Albuca to > Ornithogalum to Albuca, and even some Australian orchids. All of the > proposed changes were from accepted taxonomists. There are still > taxonomists who are holding on to the Hyacinthaceae and Themidaceae > families. And as Martin points out, the people who use our wiki are > not reading these papers which are not easy for most people to > understand. And in this case it costs money to even access them. In > the past there have been so many discussions and unhappiness about > these changes since many of them meant you could no longer look at > something and know what it was. Instead you needed to know how it > evolved. I believe that is interesting, but it may mean we will have > to carry around some meter to point at a plant so it will tell us its > name. If changes are made we have to be careful to add explanations > and synonym pages so people can find the plants they are accustomed > to. So we usually make a note on the wiki of proposed changes and then > wait a number of years to see if most people are adopting them. That > still seems like a wise way to proceed. I finally changed Spiloxene to > Paurdia last year and it took me hours and hours of work. That change > was proposed in 2013. > > Mary Sue > > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…