Talk:Lists of dinosaur specimens

This article was nominated for deletion on 26 January 2015. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Palaeontology Mid‑importance

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additions

Sophie the Stegasaurus, Sue the Tyrranosaurus, the Copes/Marsh "Brontosaurus". Plenty of news articles on all, National Geographic has a top ten list. MicroPaLeo (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Solnhofen Archaeopteryx, the first Megalosaurus limb bone, the first bird fom the Lianoning quarry, Leonardo, Raptorex. MicroPaLeo (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In Category:Specific_fossil_specimens I found WDC DML 001, SPS 100/44 and Barosaurus (“Gordo”). Siuenti (talk) 22:58, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines for cleanup

In light of the discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of dinosaur specimens, WikiProject Dinosaurs, and WikiProject Palaeontology, I think the consensus is to keep but implement clear, objective inclusion criteria per WP:SALAT, to prevent WP:IINFO and WP:LISTCRUFT (i.e. an unmanageable, arbitrary list of any specimens that one fancies). As I've argued, any specimen ever described might be arguably "notable" or significant in some aspect ("the oldest Foosaurus from the Fooizoic of Fooistan showing evidence of foo bites..."), and to prevent such indiscriminate listing, we might for instance set the inclusion criteria to specimens that have their own article, (i.e. little or no redirects like TMP88.121.39) and hence have at least satisfied Wikipedia's notability threshold. Since WP:N and WP:V do not distinguish between scientific and popular sources, another criterion might be to include only specimens which have been significantly covered in non-primary, popular literature (e.g. National Geographic, Popular Science, etc.) @Abyssal: as creator and chief contributor, I think much of the onus is on you to justify inclusion, and aid in establishing objective inclusion criteria. All the best, --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I hear you. Here are some potential criteria: Unusual quality of preservation (mummies, dinosaur specimens with soft tissue), unusual type of preservation (opalization, agatization), unusual paleobiological or ecological insight (feeding traces), intensive level of study, level of attention in the popular press. It might actually be a good idea to split this article into several articles with more specific inclusion criteria like: List of dinosaur specimens with preserved soft tissue (maybe accompanied by a separate List of dinosaur mummies?), List of dinosaur specimens preserved as gemstone, List of dinosaur specimens preserved with feeding traces, List of pathological dinosaur specimens, List of dinosaur specimens with documented taphonomic histories, and List of nicknamed dinosaur fossils. Abyssal (talk) 04:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Animalparty: what do you think about splitting the article? Abyssal (talk) 02:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]