From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy Chapman aka JzG
On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:40:53 +1100, you wrote:
For example, the Latin names of plants and animals are
boring useless
clutter to me, and IMHO, we could make for a better, more
streamlined,
more relevant encyclopaedia by removing such linnaecruft.
But I'll bet
London to a brick that if I started to remove this rubbish,
one or two
people would start getting agitated, saying that this
unpronounceable,
archaic nonsense was useful and interesting.
Mainly because it is the dominant system used by scientists to record taxonomy, and is therefore highly relevant particularly where common names are ambiguous or vary by location. Guy (JzG)
Thanks, Guy! I should have whacked a smiley or two in there. I thought "linnaecruft" was a dead giveaway. But you see my point? Just because someone doesn't find arcane information interesting or useful doesn't mean that everyone sees it that way. We should be careful about removing information from an article unless we know what we are doing.
Peter (Skyring)