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Commercial production

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Much more information is needed about commercial production. It is hard to believe that all the lingonberry jam Ikea sells around the world is wild harvested. -69.87.203.227 14:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just taking issue with this statement "It is seldom cultivated". Ikea is a massive chain and sells jam and I believe several other products all based on lingonberry.--Crossmr 19:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I looked this article up because I'm drinking a glass of cowberry juice right now, which the Austrians call "Preiselbeer". The German Wikipedia article does not mention North American production at all and instead states that the berry has long been cultivated in parts of Germany and in Holland. However, the only websites of commercial producers of lingonberry products I've seen so far all mention that they source their berries from forests - which would seem to substantiate the claim that they're usually gathered from the wild and not cultivated.

Ikea probably found a way to make their jam out of mdf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.114.254.167 (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please add commercial production statistics, for lingonberries in various countries and for derived products such as jams.-71.174.188.32 (talk) 18:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Uses / everyman's right

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From the article: "Lingonberries collected in the wild are a popular fruit in northern, central and eastern Europe, ((snip)) , where they can be picked on both public and private lands in accordance with the European tradition of "everyman's rights" ".

The Freedom to Roam slash Everyman's Right only applies to Norway, Sweden and Finland in this case, Poland, Baltics and Russia do not have such a tradition. Haven't got a clue how to reformulate though. -- Pepijnk (talk) 10:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about "and in some areas they can legally be picked on both public and private lands in accordance with the freedom to roam"? The article freedom to roam is the place to go into details about the legal differences in different countries. Kingdon (talk) 02:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a good idea to me! Bergsten (talk) 07:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Kingdon (talk) 14:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 6 February 2021

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Vaccinium vitis-idaea → Lingonberry – Google Ngrams shows a sharp and steady increase in the popularity of the term "lingonberry" in the past few decades, to the point where it is now more common than any other term by an order of magnitude. This also holds separately for both American English and British English. "Cowberry" used to be more popular until the early 1980s in American English, and until the turn of the century in British English, but since then the divergence has been very sharp. Other dialects of English are unlikely to change the picture because the plant is native to North America and Eurasia and is largely consumed only there. Regardless of whether the trend was caused by IKEA marketing or any other cause, "lingonberry" is now fairly clearly the WP:COMMON_NAME. Earlier requested moves here date from about fifteen years ago, when the usage was more divided. P.T. Aufrette (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strongly oppose There is no reason not to apply WP:NCFLORA and use the scientific name. The standard approach of WP:PLANTS is to use the scientific name unless there are very good reasons not to; what are the good reasons in this case? Also, "lingonberry" may be more common, but other vernacular names are still widely used. "Cowberry" is the accepted standard in Floras of the British Isles (see, e.g., here). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This proposed move is not incompatible with WP:NCFLORA, which states: "Scientific names are to be used as article titles in all cases except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany [emphasis mine]; e.g. rose, apple, watermelon. These exceptions are determined on a case-by-case basis through discussion towards consensus." Arguably this case is not unlike Cranberry, for instance, or Bilberry, Dewberry, and some other examples from Category:Berries which use the WP:COMMON_NAME for the title. You cite an nhm.ac.uk link which in turn cites sources from 1992 and 1998 (and others of undetermined dates), and in those days "cowberry" was indeed more prevalent in the UK, as shown by Google Ngrams. But today "lingonberry" is seven times more common than "cowberry" in the UK, and to an even greater extent in the US. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It depends on the kind of source you use. If you actually look at the books located by the Google ngrams, you'll see that, not surprisingly, terms like "lingonberry jam" are common. If instead you look at British books about the species, botanical works, a different picture emerges. When the fruits are eaten, they are called "lingonberries". When I point out the plant growing in my local National Nature Reserve, I call it "cowberry" in line with the books that people will use to identify it. There's always a problem with using Google ngrams blindly. At least in the UK, there just isn't the clarity of use that you imply.
    Interestingly, if you search in Google Scholar, which should count for more than a random selection of web pages, "cowberry vitis-idaea" gets more hits than "lingonberry vitis-idaea", suggesting those sources that are discussing the plant are more likely to use "cowberry", as was my subjective impression. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    But this means that use in other fields is "more prominent" than in botany, because according to your own argument the culinary usage is numerically overwhelming the botanical usage by a large margin. Per the quote from WP:NCFLORA in my previous post, this is actually an argument in favor of using the WP:COMMONNAME. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as lingonberry is the common name. JIP | Talk 19:37, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:27, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME. "Lingonberry" has become the overwhelmingly common name for this topic based on the Google Ngrams, and is much more common than the scientific name in the Google Ngrams. When there is that dramatic of a difference between one name for a topic and all the rest, the title of the article should reflect that. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, in the taxonbar references for this species there is a wide variety of English common names. EPPO: 5 English names, "lingon" under Swedish; GBIF: Alpine cranberry as top name; GRIN: 11 English names; ITIS: lingonberry, northern mountain cranberry; IUCN: lingonberry, though mountain cranberry used further down in assessment; NZOR: 4 common names, only has "lingberry"; USDA (PLANTS): lingonberry; VASCAN: 8 English names. With so many names in the botanical references, keep at the scientific name. Declangi (talk) 03:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This plant is "more prominent in some other field than in botany" and therefore (per the WP:NCFLORA naming criteria cited above) we cannot rely solely on botanical references to make this naming determination. Also, botanists are not linguists or lexicographers and therefore the "vernacular names" aspect of these databases is not as reliable as their actual scientific content. For example, you mention that GBIF lists "alpine cranberry" as the top name, but Google Ngrams shows its usage is nearly flatline zero in the American English corpus and outright nonexistent in the British English corpus. And as you point out, NZOR does not even list "lingonberry" as one of its options! These botanical references may reflect the situation of prior decades, when various regional names competed, with no clearcut winner. But Google Ngrams shows that "lingonberry" has shot up to global preeminence over the past three decades and is now "the" common name used by society in general, if not by botanists. We might compare this situation to "kiwifruit", which also became the global common name at the expense of older vernacular names like "Chinese gooseberry" largely on the basis of expanding culinary usage and to some extent marketing. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 08:59, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree with the implications that these databases are out of date ("may reflect the situation of prior decades") or that they are somehow unreliable re: common names. For the years of their records on this species: GRIN: 2012; ITIS: 2010; IUCN: 2016; NZOR 2012; VASCAN 2010. Those are dates I could find in their references etc. not timestamps per se, so their records may have been updated more recently. It seems like some databases (e.g. GBIF, PLANTS) "pick a winner" for a common name and others (e.g. GRIN, VASCAN) list names they consider valid in no particular order. Winner-picking may be a judgement call on their part but they do typically list their sources for names, so there's definitely a process for a name's inclusion. I agree that the databases may not be right up to date on what name is most popular. Declangi (talk) 06:09, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, I'm not sure how it's relevant that other English names are also in common use... by this criterion we would also have to use the scientific name for e.g. Coriander because it is also known as "Chinese Parsley" and "Cilantro". Scientific names should not and do not have some special status for naming articles, it's just that they are the most common unambiguous name for the vast majority of plants. But in this case, "lingonberry" is clearly both sufficiently unambiguous and much more common than the scientific name. Somatochlora (talk) 15:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, if this is an article for a species of plant, then it should be treated as such. (Probably wouldn't hurt to clean it up according to the PLANTS project Taxon Template; needs history and taxonomy info). The use of its berries for fruit would be a part of the Uses section. The common names can be redirects as they are now. Unless there are other species that are called lingonberry. The PLANTS article isn't a food article. We already have those (Lingonberry jam, Lingonberry juice, Lingonberry water a redirect to Mors (drink)). Some would say those should be combined and added as subsections under Culinary uses in the main article with redirects to the subsections. Some would not. Either way, oppose. —Eewilson (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly Oppose. The use of a common-name for a biological taxa is frequent in WP, but what common-name, why that one, why not another one? One of the reasons that Linnaean names have become universal is because common-names are all too often local, regional, temporary (in historical terms), applied to multiple taxa, which of the many common-names for that taxa do you chose, will this last in the future and so on and on. I strongy support the retention of the botanical name. I am reminded of Chinese gooseberry, "nespoli" (the common name for Eriobotyra japonica in a number of countries, though 50 years ago it meant Mespilus germanica, and even potato (derived from the Carib word batata = sweet potato which was in English originally meant when the word potato was used). I note that the page states that there are 25 common names in English alone, let alone the names used by other languages of North America and Europe. Why choose lingonberry? I know note the extensive debate of which common name before this latest move request. People refer to "the most common name" as being the appropriate heading for the article. I would argue that determining "the most common name" is all too often a "Google" search. A google search is governed by algorithms that usually concentrate on the users country of location, users' most frequent searches, &c. This tends to be self-fulfilling, i.e. "google says the most common name is X, which is my countries most common name for X" Marketing has a big part to play. International marketing changes names, therefore we should do what international marketing does. No. Let's use the biological name for a a biological thing, and let's redirect from some of the more prevalent common names, if they are unambiguous (otherwise disambiguation). That way we get people to where they want to go while educating them about the regional/temporary nature of common names. Brunswicknic (talk) 01:49, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please note, I do not cite Google Search and its proprietary algorithms. I cite Google Books Ngram Viewer, which shows n-grams from a corpus of about eight million books.[1][2] -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 15:31, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Further on the name lingonberry. The OED and Trove show the appearance of this word in English in the mid-1950s in conjunction with Swedish firms marketing their export product. I admit I am not too happy about the decisions of commercial companies marketing changing language, but that is what happens. Common language changes regularly. This fact is one of the reasons I support the retention of the botanical name. This name may also change, however it will do so systematically, with thoughtfulness and with collaboration and consensus. I can see from the history of this taxa's pages that the common name has been contentious. Brunswicknic (talk) 06:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a fully general argument against ever using common names as titles. Would you also suggest that Barley, Brazil Nut and Kiwifruit be moved to the Latin name? If not, what is the difference here? I have to say I don't really understand the arguments here. Yes, there's a chance we might have to change the name again in 30 years, but why does that matter? Yes, people might come to the page when searching "cowberry", but the page isn't going to be titled that regardless, what's the difference between and unfamiliar Latin name and an unfamiliar common name?Somatochlora (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Precision is the short answer. "Barley" is fine; there's no other English name that I know of used for the species Hordeum vulgare (and in any case, it's not clear that this is really a "species" rather than a group of cultivated varieties). "Kiwifruit" is irrelevant; the English name does not correspond to a single taxon. "Brazil nut" is an interesting case. Using exactly the same English name for the nut and the tree leads to very odd sentences, like "The Brazil nut is a large tree". Apple does better in distinguishing between the fruit, an apple, and the tree, an apple tree. An article purely about the fruit produced by Vaccinium vitis-idaea could certainly be entitled "Lingonberry", but one that discusses the species and the fruit is better at the scientific name. (If lingonberries ever become as popular as, say, blueberries, hybrids and hybrid cultivars would quickly make the scientific name of the wild plant inappropriate for the fruit.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
These two paragraphs seem to be zeroing in on the main issue: food or plant. Some plants provide food. But a plant is not just about food, particularly wild plants. Wild plants exist in biosystems, ecosystems and so on. So an article talks about taxonomy, distribution of wild populations, habitat, ecology and such biological science topics, that article is about a plant. Talking about vernacular names, uses, well that is ethnobotany, peoples interaction with plants. Now if we are talking about a food, yes the ultimate source is interesting, but if we are talking about a food then what do we want: history, means of preparation, commercial aspects, composition, some will want "the health benefits", some will want "the health costs" and so on. Do we cram everything into one article, or do we separate the plant(s) from the food. I will paraphrase something I said elsewhere in WP: somebody who is knowledgable in one area may not be a good judge of what is notable in another area. Have we seen edit-disputes between the plant and food side of things in articles on food-plants. I have seen similar in general plant pages, where socio-cultural aspects of plant use are removed as not notable by those who probably want "pure" biology. Is creating a plant-focused article and a separate food-focused article doing a disservice to the topic, particularly if they are linked. Brunswicknic (talk) 11:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Brunswicknic: I entirely agree that where there is sufficient material, a species and its product(s) are best put in different articles. I'm not clear that in this particular case there is enough to justify an article about "lingonberries as food". Peter coxhead (talk) 11:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter coxhead: That is a good point, though may it be that with separate pages there might be a more expansive treatment on the food aspects? I am not sure that there needs to be separate pages for every food-plant, and for this species, that seems to be predominantly a gathered wild food-plant, then the fact that it exists in "natural" communities adds to the "plant" side of the pendulum. That is another reason why I oppose common name headings, botanical names point to plants as parts of ecosystems that may or may not be named by people or used by people. Common names point to things used by people, to specific times in history, to specific places. Using one common name above all else does not seem appropriate when we are talking about a plant. It may surprise people, it surprised me a little bit, but there are plants that have no common name, where people living in an area name hundreds of plants, but when the plant has no cultural use or significance, then it is essentially ignored, and called "plant" when asked what it is. This happens not only in the relatively depauperate area of Europe but also in hyper-diverse New Guinea and the Amazon. I'll @Somatochlora: here, thank you for your contributions, but yes I do believe that the biological names are preferable to common names in many cases, including for brazil nuts, coriander or is that cilantro, barley and so on. But I do not dismiss the opposite view, and am happy to work towards consensus. Brunswicknic (talk) 12:21, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Surely your example sentence could simply call it a "Brazil nut tree". In fact, this is Encyclopedia Britannica's title for it, and they have a separate entry for the nut as food. And for what it's worth, Encyclopedia Britannica also uses the title Lingonberry — for the plant. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 15:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A little surprised people are making the distinction between the plant and the berry. We don’t have lingonberry here, but to me, blackberry, blueberry, serviceberry etc. refer equally to the plant or the berry. Somatochlora (talk) 17:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Somatochlora: the issue is not just the distinction between the fruit and the plants that produce that fruit (although I still think "the Brazil nut is a large tree" is odd), but between the species and the fruit plus the plants that are used to produce the fruit. Blueberries are not the product of a single species, but of a variety of species, hybrids and cultivars. Blackberries are the same. It may well be that at present lingonberries are the product only of Vaccinium vitis-idaea, but the more they become commercially valuable, the more likely it is that plants used will be hybrids and/or cultivars. The distinction between the species and the rest has been well explained by Brunswicknic above – a species has taxonomy, native distribution, habitat, ecology, ethnobotanical use, etc. Cultivated plants that produce fruit have a history of introduction and breeding, production volumes and yields by country, etc. Their fruit has nutritional values, culinary uses, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter coxhead: I still don't understand the distinction you are making though. In what sense does "lingonberry" not refer to the species? Plenty of people use it that way e.g. Michigan Flora, iNaturalist, Brittanica. I think it is true that we (you and I) find "Brazil Nut" weird when referring to a tree, but that's because we don't regularly talk about them in any context except the nuts. But I talk about Butternut, Walnut, Chestnut etc. all the time when referring to the species, not only in casual conversation but in formal reports to governments, public documentation, etc. I find this whole conversation kind of confusing. Some people are arguing that "lingonberry" is not a reasonable synonym of "Vaccinium vitis-idaea", others are arguing that they are synonyms but we still shouldn't use it. Somatochlora (talk) 15:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JIP: did you actually look at these three articles? None of them is about a species of plant, so they are not comparable with this one. As explained above, cultivated fruit plants with a history of cross-breeding, and multiple cultivars and cultivar groups, are different from wild species that happen to produce edible fruit. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:36, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter coxhead: What about the Barley article, then? It does seem to be about a single species. In any case, this "single-species" line of argument seems to be your own interpretation unsupported by the WP:NCFLORA guidelines. Nowhere does it say that the vernacular name cannot be used as an article title unless a plant has multiple cultivars and therefore separate articles for the plant-as-food and the plants-as-botanical-species. Rather, WP:NCFLORA explicitly suggests that the vernacular name may be appropriate when the non-botanical usage outweighs the botanical usage (per the citation in one of my earlier posts in this discussion). -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 18:24, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@P.T. Aufrette: my point was not that the vernacular name cannot be used as an article title unless those conditions apply, but that when those conditions apply the vernacular name is likely to be the most plausible, if for no other reason that there's no obvious scientific name that properly covers the topic. Barley is a more relevant example. One consequence of the way the article is structured is that the wild species and its distribution, ecology, etc. is hardly discussed in the article. However, I would have thought that it was absolutely clear that the importance of barley as a crop is not comparable to that of lingonberries. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:56, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter coxhead: It is hardly relevant, though, whether lingonberry-as-food is comparable to barley-as-food. The relevant comparison, explicitly mentioned in the naming criteria in WP:NCFLORA, is usage of "Vaccinium_vitis-idaea" as a topic of botany being outweighed by usage of "lingonberry" in non-botany contexts. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2021 (UTC):::[reply]
@P.T. Aufrette: exactly. And lingon-berry-as-food isn't sufficiently important to override the default of NCFLORA. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Casliber: It's not that simple. WP:NCFLORA describes circumstances where the vernacular name may be used or ought to be used instead of the scientific name: when the non-botanical usage predominates. For the exact citation, see one of my earlier posts above. The Barley article is an example where the vernacular name is used, and the species name Hordeum vulgare redirects to it. In light of this, will you reconsider your stance? -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 18:33, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One of my pet hates is inconsistency - e.g. if we have a genus of plants and most are at scientific names and a couple are at common names, or animals where the situation is vice versa. Drives me nuts. So as it stands I would vote for scientific names whereever possible with plants and common names with animals Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:21, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support There is no reason not to apply WP:AT and use the common name rather than scientific name. "Lingonberry" is, in comparison with Vaccinium vitis-idaea
  1. more Recognizable [ name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.]
  2. more Natural [The title is one that readers are likely to look for]
  3. equally Precise [no other species is commonly known as "Lingonberry"]
  4. about equally Concise (let's not nitpick here)
  5. consistent with Strawberry, Blackberry, Blueberry, Gooseberry, Bilberry (although, granted, most of those do not correspond 1:1 with a botanical species like this one).
No such user (talk) 10:50, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@No such user: the reason not to apply the more general WP:AT is the more specific WP:NCFLORA. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter coxhead: A supplemental guideline such as WP:NCFLORA may not contradict a broad-scale policy WP:AT – it should only offer interpretations and guidelines for field-specific topics. I'm not against the NCFLORA's general principle that gives more weight to scientific names (particularly on the basis of Precision AT principle, since common names can get quite imprecise). However, I'm swayed by the OP's arguments that by now Lingonberry has the agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent [...] than in botany (exact quote from NCFLORA). No such user (talk) 12:07, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe: then what is the point of WP:NCFLORA if it can always be over-ridden by editors quoting WP:AT? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no point unless it is read and applied. It appears to me to support this move. There is no need to override it. Andrewa (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Does it not bother anyone then if we (for instance) consider Vaccinium - that we'd have some at common and some at scientific names? And where should the line be drawn? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Andrewa: well, we read WP:NCFLORA differently. You have to weigh up the degree to which "a plant is of interest outside botany" against "precision and consistency" and "category sorting". Consistency is the point Casliber is making above. Further, I think there's every doubt that "lingonberry" is the current most commonly used vernacular name in reliable sources. It's widely used in poor quality and hence unacceptable "superfood"-pushing websites, but that should not influence us. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:44, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, while these "superfood"-pushing websites may be poor quality (or not) as to health benefits, they are perfectly acceptable as evidence of the common name. That's not so much a disagreement about NCFLORA as about wp:reliable and wp:CONTEXTMATTERS. Interesting points but no change of !vote. Andrewa (talk) 09:39, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@EuroAgurbash: I don't think anyone disputes that this is the name used for the berries. If this were an article just about the berries, "lingonberry" would be the obvious title. But it isn't. It's about the plant as a whole. I can equally say that "cowberry" is the vernacular name I use for the plant, and which is used in all the Floras I have on my shelves. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the arguments made by Cas Liber and Peter coxhead, while I don't think it's ideal consistency is key. Overutilizing common names muddies the waters and makes it harder for editors and readers alike. Call me a stick in the mud but that was my gut instinct when I saw this discussion and I felt the need to throw in my two cents as well. Fritzmann2002 T, c, s, t 20:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How does it male it harder for editors and readers alike? There is no question that Vaccinium vitis-idaea should remain as a redirect, so those who know or link to it by this name will still seamlessly get to the article they want. Andrewa (talk) 15:44, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm speaking from personal anecdotal experience here, so take this with a grain of salt, but when creating a species article I don't want to have to do the dance of figuring out whether the common name or taxonomic name is more widely used every single time. I like that NCFLORA states that, except in a few circumstances, I can reasonably assume that when I create an article that I can create it under the species' binomial. If that convention and precedent is changed, this exact same move discussion will be on far more talk pages, distracting editors from actually producing content with minor quibbling. I won't be upset if this article is moved to Lingonberry, per se, but I am just a little bit concerned that this debate will become perennial if it does. I have no idea if that made sense but that's my personal opinion on the matter. Fritzmann2002 T, c, s, t 12:59, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Talk page length

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I find it interesting that this talk page is almost three and a half times as long as the entire article, and consists almost completely only of discussions about the article's name. JIP | Talk 12:32, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly you could much the same about many "style" vs. "substance" debates. Just look at the reams of discussion at most of the MoS pages. It would be interesting to know how many bird articles could have been written in the time occupied by the argument about whether to use capitalized or non-capitalized English names for birds. Anyway, back to content now! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:04, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say sadly at all! It's great that so many volunteers are prepared to spend their time improving Wikipedia.
It is easy if your main interest is in providing content (and that is our bottom line, certainly) to see other discussions as a mere distraction. But that assumes that if others weren't discussing article names, style, and other matters of presentation and navigation, they'd instead spend this time contributing content. Shaky assumption IMO.
I strongly believe that our priorities are content, content and content. If the content is there, people will find it however bad our naming and navigation is... and thanks to redirects, it's generally pretty effective however imperfect and even POV it is at times. But if it ain't there it won't be found.
And yet I still spend most of my time here as a referee. Hopefully that helps to free up some of the combatants to improve articles. That hope is why I bother.
See also Andrew's Principle and C2 in particular. Andrewa (talk) 02:23, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And now, after the move discussion has been closed, this talk page is almost four and a half times as long as the entire article. JIP | Talk 00:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JIP: I am less cynical than you may be. It is far easier to rave on about something, such as on a talk page, than to put reliable well-written material somewhere. Many pages have masses of archived talk, far longer than their "actual" page. As well, what happened here was a dispute between those who like linnaean names and those who like common names, so the the talk is not just about Vvi/Lingonberry but about structures of WP. Looking at some of the people who contributed to the discussion, I know that they spend much more time doing "real" stuff on WP than they did talking on this page. Still, it is all contribution, stuff and talking about stuff. Regards. Brunswicknic (talk) 09:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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