Guidelines

Become a Contributor

To become a contributor, click "Create Account" on the upper right hand side of the page and complete the form. Please send an email introducing yourself to webmaster Kevin Robertson including your username and real name. Contributors not known to the webmaster will not be retained. You will have a contributor webpage set up that will allow you to cite your contributions to your webpage using your username, explained below.

Editing

Coastal Plain Plants uses a Wikimedia platform, the same as used for Wikipedia. A good place to start learning how to edit is this tutorial, and more sophisticated commands can be searched online, but some basic instructions are as follows:

To edit pages, login, then click the "Edit" tab or and of the "Edit" hyperlinks on pages.

After editing, click the "Save Page" button at the bottom, and then it will go back to the front end view.

If there were no edits, then clicking the "Read" tab at the top will bring you back to the front end view.

Latin names of plants and other organisms should be written in italics by adding two single apostrophes before and after the name (not quotation marks). For example:

Typing ''Dyschoriste oblongifolia'' (two apostrophes) returns Dyschoriste oblongifolia.

Default subheadings are provided for each plant webpage. However, if they do not have any information under them yet then they are hidden using the format <!-- hidden subheading -->. If you delete the <!--- and --> then the subheading will appear in the Read window.

Content Guidelines

General

The Webmaster adds plant pages to the website. If you would like a plant added, please contact the Webmaster at Kevin Robertson.

Use binomial (scientific) names of plants to species or finer taxonomic resolution. Common names can be added to the common names list at the top of the page.

Provide as much context for contributions as possible, such as habitat, geographic location, land use history (old-field, native community, pasture, etc.), and other potentially helpful information.

Taxonomic notes

The Webmaster provides synonyms and varieties/subspecies using Weakley 2015, but other sources can be added by contributors. Include author(s) of species and varieties. Include only synonyms for which names are different than the page title at the genus or species level. However, include varieties and subspecies of those synonyms. For example, for Agalinis fasciculata: Synonyms: Gerardia fasciculata Elliott ssp. typica (Pennell) Pennell; Garardia fasciculata Elliott ssp. peninsularis (Pennell) Pennell

Distribution

Summary of the distribution, and any information about the species' geographic distribution that is more specific than the state maps. For example, "This species may occur from North Carolina to Texas, but is mostly found in the Carolinas."

Ecology

Habitat – Any information about the species' natural communities, human disturbed habitats, sensitivity to soil disturbance, role in succession, topography, hydrology, soils, light, fire regime requirements, and the like. Also within this section can be added associated species, by just starting a new paragraph at the end: "Associated species – Andropogon gerardii" etc.

Phenology - Timing of flowering, fruiting, seed dispersal, and environmental triggers.

Seed dispersal – Mode of seed dispersal (e.g. wind, gravity, animals, explosive dehiscence), specific animals that disperse seeds, characteristics of seeds relevant to dispersal, and the like. Use highest resolution of latin names for animals as possible.

Seed bank and germination - Ability for seeds to remain dormant in the soil and how for long, germination requirements and cues, characteristics of seeds relevant to seed persistence and germination.

Fire ecology - Fire tolerance, fire dependence, morphological and life history characteristics that might be adaptive to fire and fire regimes, etc.

Pollination and insect hosting – What insects or other animals pollinate the flowers, adaptations to attract pollinators, use of plants for hosting larvae, etc.

Herbivory and toxicology - Herbivory, granivory, chemical traits influencing plant use, etc.

Diseases and parasites - Self explanatory.

Conservation, cultivation, and restoration

Field management techniques that restore or benefit the species, mostly relevant to foundational species and species of special concern.

===Cultural use=== Use by humans, whether traditional, homeopathic, modern medical, industrial, etc.

Citing Contributions

Contributions should always be cited using standard Wikimedia formats.

Type <ref> followed by the reference information to be cited, followed by </ref>. This will insert a hyperlinked superscript number that links to the reference, which is automatically placed at the bottom of the page. This can be used to add specific notes about an observation or cite published literature.

If the same source is going to be cited multiple times on the same page, the first time you cite the source, type <ref name= short name of reference>, followed by the reference, then </ref>. Then every time afterward you can just write <ref name= short name of reference/> and it cites the reference with a hyperlinked subscript as above.

Create links to other pages

Links to external webpages can be inserted by placing the URL followed by text for the hyperlink in single brackets. For example, typing [http://plants.usda.gov NRCS] will appear as NRCS.

Links to other pages within Coastal Plain Plants can be made by using double brackets. For example [[Dyschoriste oblongifolia]] will return Dyschoriste oblongifolia.

Add images

To add an image, it first has to be uploaded. To upload an image, click Upload File under Tools in the side bar menu and follow the instructions. If the file is over 2 MB then it cannot be uploaded. In that case, the image size will need to be reduced in another software application, such as Microsoft Paint, before uploading. Reference to the uploaded image is case-sensitive, so note the exact case of the file name and extension.

Add images to gallery

To add an image to the Photo Gallery, add one line of information per image in between the gallery opening and closing statements, e.g.:

<gallery widths=180px>

File:Salvia_azurea.jpg|''Salvia azurea'' Photo by Kevin Robertson, Pebble Hill Plantation, GA

</nowiki></gallery></nowiki>

The part after the pipe provides a caption, so it looks like:

• 

  Salvia azurea Photo by Kevin Robertson, Pebble Hill Plantation, GA, September 30, 2018

Add institution image to Main Page

Add uploaded images to the gallery as described for plant pages, but you can also add a link from the image to your institution's website by adding link=your_institution_URL after the pipe, e.g.:

<gallery mode=packed heights=70px>

File:TT_logo_1.jpg|link=http://www.ttrs.org

File:idigbio_logo.jpg|link=http://www.idigbio.org

</gallery>

Add a new plant species page

To add plant pages we suggest that you make a request for pages to be added to the webmaster to set up a new page or pages. However, you can also set up a page yourself using the following instructions:

• Navigate to the Plant Species page, where the plant species binomials are listed in alphabetical order.
• Start editing.
• In the correct alphabetical location, add a link using the binomial of the new species in double brackets, e.g. [[Dyschoriste oblongifolia]].
• Save the page, and the link appears as a red hyperlink.
• Select the hyperlink, and you will be brought to the new page with the plant's name as the title.
• Type or paste the command {{subst:Template:PlantName}} to bring in the template text.
• Save the page and begin editing

The new page will include a "Taxobox", which is a template for creating the box with the plant name, image, taxonomy, and distribution. The Taxobox will need to be edited. To fill in the Taxobox you will need:

• Uploaded image for the species
• Taxonomic information for the plant, which can be obtained from the NRCS Plants Database or other updated reliable source.
• Uploaded image for the distribution of the species. Most pages so far have used images screen-saved from the NRCS Plants Database.

Images must be your own or have permission to be posted from the photographer.