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Do we need an internal peer-review?

A strength of Wikipedia are collaborative efforts. Our WikiProject offers several instruments for collaborative editing, including the Paleoart Review (which is a continued success) and the Palaeontology collaboration (which recently got new momentum). However, our core occupation – standard article work – was often without much interaction between project members, as our project offers no suitable instrument.

User:FunkMonk had the idea of a dedicated Peer Review to fill this gap, partly inspired by the internal A class review of the military history Wikiproject. We were discussing and developing the idea during the past weeks. Such a Peer Review, where any Paleo article, small or large, can be presented, enables authors to gain feedback and support for their work, and others to take notice of and participate in some of the many small accomplishments made in our project. Below we outline one possible way how such a Peer Review could be set up, though everything, including the viability of the idea itself, is of course open for discussion and requires approval by a majority of project members.

We could cover three types of reviews, each in a dedicated section: Fact Checks, Full Peer Reviews, and Old FA reviews. In the "Fact Checks" section, comments could be "content only" – to not bother the author with lengthly lists of minor style issues. This type of review is suitable for any new or reworked article, irrespective of length and completeness. The "Full Peer Review" could offer help to bring articles into shape for GAN and FAC. The "Old FA reviews" could spotlight one of the many old neglected FAs that are in need of improvement; a consistent problem which naturally becomes larger over time.

Everything could be kept as simple and automatised as possible. We envisage a routine very similar to the existing Paleoart Review, with automatic archival after a set time of inactivity. En passant comments are encouraged, and no full reviews are required since we do not have supports or opposes, fails or passes. Nominators would be expected to act on any issues presented to them, although direct collaborative editing to the nominated article would be encouraged.

For now, we would like to know:

  • 1) Is the idea viable and worth a try?
  • 2) If yes – do you have any thoughts, alternative ideas, or improvements to the possible setup outlined above?
  • 3) Would you be interested in submitting articles to such a PeerReview, and do you possibly have suitable articles already?
  • 4) Would you be interested in commenting on submitted articles? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, all I can add is that though we do have a palaeo peer review page[1], it has never really been used for anything but a list (I only learned it existed a few weeks ago), so we'd need some sort of new layout and infrastructure similar to the image review or military A-class to get it up and running. But looking at the list, it seems Kevmin added newly created articles there? FunkMonk (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I'd support a Fact Check and maybe a Revitalize section, but if someone's looking for a full peer review, they might as well go to WP:PR.   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
1: I think that this is a pretty good idea, although I suppose WP:PR could also be used (like I did with Puertasaurus)
2: One thing that I find helpful with initial expansion is to have someone look over what's there and then provide a list of questions regarding the content, like what Jens did when I started work on the paleobiology section of Acamptonectes. This sort of feedback was useful for focusing my efforts and building up momentum.
3: I'm currently working on expansions to Peloneustes and Tatenectes, so once those are ready sending them through an internal peer review would be really nice!
4: Commenting on submitted articles would be a good way to build up skills for GAN and FAC reviews, something that I personally feel quite apprehensive about doing. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 19:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, and yes, I tend to agree – we already have WP:PR for the regular reviews, and that place has the added advantage that people without much background knowledge can check for comprehensibility (a difficult thing to do for us insiders). So we could restrict ourselves to the Fact Checks (and possibly Old FA reviews). Maybe we could integrate a list of the active Paleontology reviews at WP:PR though, so that we still have everything in sight. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
The regular peer reviews don't attract so many paleo editors, though, maybe because people may feel they have to conduct a complete review of the entire article at that FAC/GAN level? With this new system, drive by comments by anyone regardless of FAC/GAN experience would be encouraged, so people can participate without reading entire articles, which would hopefully attract more people. That is of course also possible at normal peer review, but there must be a reason why few people participate in them? Maybe they are not so visible either? FunkMonk (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I must confess I had missed the paleo reviews at WP:PR far too often, probably because new paleo articles to review appear there far too infrequently and I just forget to check that list regularly. An internal Palaeontology Review would be something I would definitely have on my watch list. Maybe we can even transclude the relevant WP:PR reviews to our internal Peer Review? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:08, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Or should we just keep it flexible, naming it "Fact Checks" while asking the nominator to indicate when they are looking for a more extensive review? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
PRs do appear in the article alerts section on the project page, if you're looking for a place to find the paleo-related ones. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 20:15, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I was about to suggest transclusion here too, I wonder if it's technically possible? Because then we would get the best of both worlds... FunkMonk (talk) 20:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
If we're trying to set up our own independent system, we can steal from the DYK setup and do what's below (maybe change the color scheme so the plagiarism isn't too obvious), and then we can ask the PR coordinators if they can add a parameter specifically to redirect to our fact-checking page (maybe |paleo=yes). I haven't quite figured out how they did archive1 and archive2 and so forth, and I'd need to make some other templates to make this work properly, but if this is the direction we're heading in I can work on it more   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Extended content
Here is how to request a fact-checking review

Please don't panic

I.
Create the nomination subpage.

Enter the article title in the box below and click the button. You will then be taken to a preloaded nomination page.


II.
Write the request.
  • On the nomination page, tell us a little about the subject and what you expect from a reviewer. Is this article special for you? Or are you planning on nominating for GA or FA? Are you revitalizing an older GA or FA?
  • Click Save page.
  • Make sure your review page is on your watchlist, so you can follow the review discussion.
III.
Post at Fact-check.
  • At the top of the current reviews section, add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Paleontology Fact-check/YOUR ARTICLE TITLE}}.
  • Add an edit summary e.g. "Listing YOUR ARTICLE TITLE for fact-checking" and click Save page.
  • Add {{Paleo fact-checker}} to the top of your article's talk page

{{Paleo fact-checker}} banner would be

This would be a pretty good idea, since it looks like an easier way, and maybe more practical for new users? Though I think the question if the article is special for you might not be necessary because the articles nominated by users are usually (if not always) special (or important) for them. The color scheme might also be very obvious that it belongs to a DYK, so I agree that some changes should be made. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 08:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Copying the DYK setup is certainly an option, but isn't it a bit overkill for our comparatively small project? I was, instead, thinking about just copying the Paleoart Review setup instead, with slight modifications. Advantages of this approach I see include:
  • We know it well, and it already proved its worth.
  • We have all reviews on the same page (in separate sections), not in separate sub-pages. This is of disadvantage for a large project (such as DYK) but might be better for a small one, since we have all activity concentrated on a single site (we have all new comments to any review immediately on our watchlist).
  • It is easier to setup, and easier to maintain. The only technical part would be the automated archival, and the inclusion of the list of reviews from WP:PR.
  • Minimal recurrent maintenance. We should not underestimate this, even minor maintenance tasks that need to be made regularly will become a big problem long-term! (DYK seems to use a dedicated bot for this, but again, I think that is too much for us!). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:30, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Jens that for small and short reviews a system similar to the Paleoart review, or maybe the "Fact Checks" would be more practical, but for the longer reviews such as the ones before FA or GA, I think the "Full Peer Review" or basically WP:PR would be more suited. I also didn't remember that the DYK process needs a bot, so that might not be so practical for small reviews, again, I agree with Jens on that one. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 10:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Paleoart scheme is better   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:34, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
I would also support a system similar to the palaeoart page. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:36, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree that this (WP:PALEOART system) sounds good. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 23:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Agree with both of Slate Weasel's comments: a dedicated WP:PALEOART-style fact check page plus transclusion of relevant peer reviews. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:02, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Here's another proposition for the interface:

Extended content

This page is for conducting peer reviews of paleontology-related articles. There are three different types of reviews that you can submit an article to, and which format to choose depends based on the article. Please read the below instructions to find which one is correct for your needs.

Fact Checks

Fact checks are relatively quick reviews that are mainly focused on article content. They are mainly used to assess the article's accuracy, and can be applied to any article, regardless of quality or length. To get an article fact-checked, click the button below to create a new section. Please title the section with the article name for clarity.

Click here to submit an article for a fact check

Full Peer Review

Full peer reviews are longer and more rigorous, and also involve critique on style, prose, and layout. These are useful for getting an expanded article into shape for WP:GAN or WP:FAC. For this type of review, please go to WP:PR and follow the instructions there.

Go to WP:PR

After initiating a peer review, please add {{Wikipedia:Peer review/Insert article title here/archive1}} below to transclude the review here. That way, more editors will be able to view it.

Old FA Reviews

Since research on a subject continues after it is promoted to featured article status, some older featured articles are now out of date. This form of peer review can be used to renovate a FA in need of updating.

I don't think we really came up with how we're going to do this...

This is very minimal, and I think that it would be better if someone who isn't me wrote the instructions, but it does use the PALEOART system. Feel free to edit this if you wish. What do you all think about this? Is it an adequate setup or should it be scrapped? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 17:47, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

  • Great, thank you all. It looks like there is enough interest in setting up an internal peer review, although it is impossible to tell if we will be able to keep it alive long-term. But I also think that giving it a try will not hurt; and even if this review falls asleep eventually, it will always stay available for editors to revive (all that is needed to revive it is submitting a new article, maybe with a note on the Project's main talk page so that people remember). So let's give it a try! I will set up the page, following the advice/drafts presented above (and coming back to you, @Slate Weasel:, for the technical details), and then we can improve it together before launching it? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Sounds good, and it seems there are already a few trial articles that could be used. FunkMonk (talk) 18:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Looks like the peer review transclusion is working[2], but does it take in all science articles? FunkMonk (talk) 10:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Only a test. I currently see two options: 1) Automatically transclude all Science articles listed in WP:PR (using the shortlist so that it does not become too long). 2) Manually add (and remove) respective transclusions from WP:PR (the original idea of Slate Weasel), which means it will only be transcluded if the author adds it in both WP:PR and in the Paleo PeerReview. I somehow prefer 1), since it works fully automatically without any maintenance, and we always have all paleo reviews listed. The drawback is that all science articles are listed. Well, paleontology is very interdisciplinary, so it might not be a big issue. But the article alerts seem to be able to filter out the paleontology reviews; so I wonder if it would be technically possible to transclude only those automatically? Does anybody know? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
@Slate Weasel: is it possible to have the blue buttons point at a specified section? Right now I got it working for the "Fact Checks", but it will open a new section only at the bottom of the page. This means that the Fact Checks need to be the last section, and that we cannot have a similar button for, e.g., the old FA reviews (which I left out for now). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
The old FA reviews also need more discussion. I somehow doubt that a classical collaboration on those articles will be effective/gain much interest. Maybe we should just provide this section, encouraging authors who are planning to rework such an article to list it there, and then provide them which all possible support and contributions in the process? Like a collaboration, but with a single author responsible for keeping it going? If so, the section will remain empty until such an hero-editor appears. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Maybe an old FA review can also be just collaboratively making a to do list without necessarily fixing it all, and then copying the list to the talk page of an article afterwards, so that the issues can be chipped away down the line? As for transclusion of only paleo tagged peer reviewed articles, perhaps Headbomb or Hellknowz knows? FunkMonk (talk) 10:48, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
1) I fear that lists of unresolved issues left at the article's talk page will motivate people to list the article as a Featured Article Removal Candidate. Or worse, such lists would permit this in the first place. 2) I agree that discussions (even without immediate acting) are important though. But I think the main issues are similar for all these articles, so it might be better to have a general discussion on what the issues are, and how to solve them and keep them maintainable in the future. For example, the more important articles may need sub-articles where excessive detail can go; it would be great to have general agreement on which, and when, such sub-articles should be created (this is tricky!). 3) We could, instead, have a dedicated site at the WikiProject with a list of FAs, their current state ("good" to "urgent") and issues to be fixed, as an overview? 4) If we would do this, we might not need a dedicated sub-section at the Peer Review for such articles; if review is needed, we could simply use WP:PR for this task. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:43, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the buttons, I honestly have no clue how to control where a new section is added, perhaps IJReid, who created the buttons for the DINOART and PALEOART reviews knows? I've made the color of the fact check button text white so it can actually be seen (it was blue before). Also, my progress on Tatenectes is such that it will be ready for submission for fact check in a day or two! --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 13:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Theres nothing really special to what I put Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Image review/Header more than changing the text and the button size and specs etc. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 03:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
WP:SECT indicates that it is not possible to control where new sections are added. The only way I can see this working is creating dedicated subpages and transcluding them into the primary page. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
That brings us back to how do we archive these pages   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:35, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
What we could do is use action=edit&section=2, and instruct the user to put down {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/ARTICLETITLE/archiveNUMBER}} at the top of the list, and then save, click on the red link, and create the review page. For example, when a user hits the button, they might see
=Fact check=
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Tyrannosaurus/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Velociraptor/archive3}}
. . .
and when they save they would see their nomination as Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Triceratops/archive1 and would have to click on this redlink and create a page   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. As it is now, the link for the Fact check will work (since the Fact Checks section is the last section). The old FA review is still being discussed (see above) but here we could just use the standard way (clicking just "edit" at the respective section as we do everywhere). I personally would avoid creating any dedicated sub-pages for the reviews, as this would require more maintenance I think? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Folks, we have the Peer review ready now, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review. There are still things to improve (see discussion above) but I think the current version will work for now just fine. Old FA reviews may still be added (please discuss the details with us, see above). Automatic archival is another unsolved issue, as the regular bots are for talk pages only; I'm sure we can persuade some bot operator to include us, but maybe our odds are better once the page is actually full. We can even think about implementing the automatic archivals for the Paleoart reviews in one go. Please make any edits you feel fit, and if there are no more concerns we could start with the first reviews very soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Great! I just thought of another type of article that could be sent there; FAs which have been substantially expanded since being promoted, and whose new text has therefore not been reviewed. For example, Ankylosaurus became a FA before the newest redescription was published, and while it was later expanded accordingly, the text was never reviewed, and might need a check-up. Similarly, once Spinophorosaurus is fully updated, it will also be substantially expanded since its FA promotion, and could need a check up. And once I've incorporated the info from the new Dilophosaurus monograph, I'm sure it could need a fresh look over too (the culture section was also expanded recently)... That would count as a review of old FAs as well, just with more focus on the expanded text. Any thoughts on that? FunkMonk (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes sure, the intro explicitly states that "articles of any length and quality" (statement authored by Slate Weasel) may be submitted to the "Fact Check". This includes old and not-so-old FAs of course. Maybe we can formulate it more clearly that we are open for everything? Do we need to replace the term "Fact Checks" with something more general? We can also ask the nominator to indicate whether they are looking for a more comprehensive review? I think we should make this Peer Review as flexible as possible, but at the same time I tried to make clear that this is not just a redundant copy of WP:PR. Any suggestions on how to do this better are highly welcome. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Added a sentence to the intro to explicitly mention this possibility, how does it look? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Ah, you're way ahead of me! The text looks inclusive enough, and I think I might put up Ankylosaurus as a test soon if we're ready. Edit: Anky now added! FunkMonk (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Since the review process seems to be going pretty well, some questions have arisen that we may want to discuss: 1, how and when do we archive? Do we move the discussions to the talk pages of the articles in question only or should the PR page also have its own archive to keep track of its history? 2, what happens after a PR, can the same reviewers just quick pass the articles at GAN if they have done a full review, or would that be improper? Maybe Casliber (as an admin and paleo editor) has some idea of what would be good conduct? FunkMonk (talk) 23:40, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Also is it allowed to have an open PR while the article is at GAN or FAC?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
No problem I'd think, unless of course it's the "standard" PR which has its own rules. Though it's of course best to wait nominating for GAN/FAC until all issues raised at PR have been addressed. FunkMonk (talk) 09:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't really have an opinion about an internal archive; we would have the content in two separate places (the archive and the article's talk page), and it would require more maintenance, but I also see the benefits. If someone wants to set an archive up I would personally be fine with it. Regarding the quick pass at GAN, I also thought about that … I just asked at GAN, lets see what they say: [3] --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:29, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Eocene

Right then, am finding it hard to get enthused enough to do much content at the moment, but given the excellent work done to get Paleocene featured, I reckon we should strike while the iron is hot and get some other epochs done. That article can now work as a template so we can get other articles looking the same. I have reorganized Eocene. Is this something folks are keen on working on? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe Dunkleosteus77, who did Paleocene, has some ideas for how this could be achieved. At the moment, I'd probably try to get the "official" palaeo collaboration Acamptonectes done before moving on to another (but I can review, which is always in short anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 10:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Fair points. Will take a look at the official collab tomorrow Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:08, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Each epoch is going to have to be somewhat tailor-made depending on what's more important to this stage than others (for example, Paleocene is much different than the Boring Billion). The Eocene is known for having an explosion of floral and faunal taxa, and a lot of what is known about Paleocene taxa comes from the fact that these taxa are already well abundant by the beginning of the Eocene. Given this, it may be better to split up the Flora section into Angiosperms, Gymnosperms, Pteridophytes, and Algae depending on how much is known about each   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:04, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Eocene only gets around 400 page views a day while Jurassic, Cretaceous and Pleistocene get around 1,150, 1,350 and 1,250 daily views respectively. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:22, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Considering most users in this Wikiproject tend to focus on dinosaurs and Mesozoic creatures in general, it may be better to choose a Mesozoic epoch for a collaborative effort   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:12, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
I also think that it's a good idea to focus on where most layreaders will actually look, "gateway" articles we could call them. Most people have heard of the Jurassic, and will probably look there first, so if such articles are up to snuff, we've already come a long way in "educating" readers. Same with for example dinosaurs that appeared in Jurassic Park, most people will have heard of them, so more people will visit those articles. FunkMonk (talk) 21:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Ultimately, all of the geological epoch articles should be GA or FA because there aren't that many of them and geological epoch articles fall into the core remit of a classical enycylopedia, it's just that we should prioritize the most read articles first. Given that it is the most viewed, I propose that the Cretaceous as the article for collaboration. For the Cretaceous there's a lot of significant changes to cover, like the final breakup of gondwana, the rise of flowering plants, sea level changes C-T anoxic event and of course the K-Pg boundary. I don't think that the current article is awful but it is definitely lacking. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
sure. getting all the epoch articles up to GA and FA is a very good idea.Clone commando sev (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
I like the idea of doing them in a sequence, so Cretaceous is next to Paleocene....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:11, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
The official collaboration, Acamptonectes, is almost done, so we could nominate Cretaceous as a candidate for the next one. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Maybe we should try to wrap that one up? I've started to write about the mandible, will probably also take the teeth. FunkMonk (talk) 14:59, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
I can do the postcranium as soon as I get some time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

New Pterosaur Paper

A new paper was published today, coining the new clade Zambellisauria for Peteinosaurus + Macronychoptera and Caviramidae for Arcticodactylus + Caviramus (interestingly Caviramidae was previously "predicted" on DeviantArt for the same clade, but likely as a replacement for Raeticodactylidae). The paper's findings seem at odds with the phylogeny used on Wikipedia; what should we do? Atlantis536 (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

we do the obvious. wait to see if any retractions are made. if no, we update the article/s. if yes we should find some consensus. Clone commando sev (talk) 03:14, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

For the interested

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Günter Bechly (2nd nomination) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Pulmonoscorpius

Pulmonoscorpius averages 94 views per day yet is a 2 line stub, is anyone interested in improving it? there are some really nice images of the holotype at GB3D (See www.3d-fossils.ac.uk/fossilType.cfm?typSampleId=25001235 the link wont properly format for some reason) but these are under a NC license unfortunately. Hemiauchenia (talk)

eh it is a stub. should be pretty easy to improve. i'll do some work on it, when i get some time. Clone commando sev (talk) 02:17, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

List of Chengjiang Biota species by phylum

As noted at its talk page, List of Chengjiang Biota species by phylum has large numbers of links redirecting back to itself, which is pointless and misleading (as it doesn't show the absence of an article). Any views as to what should be done about this? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:49, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

No taxa should redirect to the formation it was found in. If no article exists, they should be left as redlinks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  13:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
That's just bizarre. At worst they should redirect to the parent phyla. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:00, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
why would someone do that? it is truly mind-boggling. Clone commando sev (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I've dealt with some of this by creating articles for the ones that were part of Artiopoda, I did think at the time that the redirect choices were puzzling. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Having re-looked at one of the articles I created, many of them appear to have been unsourced stubs that were redirected by @Stemonitis: back in 2010-11. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
This also means that many of the re-directs can simply undone, is everyone okay with me doing this? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm down. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
unsourced stubs can be improved. go ahead. Clone commando sev (talk) 02:50, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
@Hemiauchenia: any action that gets rid of the redirects as they are now is good! Peter coxhead (talk) 05:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I've gone through the "what links here" section of the article and undone all of the redirects, there were over 25 in total. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
A complete list of stubs in case anybody is interested in improving them Jianfengia Almenia Clypecaris Combinivalvula Cyathocepalus Dianchia Comptaluta DiplopygeDongshanocaris Ercaia Ercaicunia Forticeps Glossocaris Haikoucaris Jianshania Jiucunella Kunmingella Kunmingocaris Kunyangella Mafangia MalongellaOvalicephalisParakunmingella Primicaris Pterotum Pseudoiulia. Many cambrian arthropod stubs are barren but these are especially bad. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I'll have a go at them after Klamelisaurus. I need a long-running project, haha... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 04:03, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
@Lithopsian: you undid one of my reversions stating "the discussion was hardly consensus to create pointless uncited one-line articles simply to avoid self-redirects" would you like to explain why your opinion overrides the concensus of four people here? Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
i see similar things all the time. it happens alot at DRN. some people just think they are more important i guess Clone commando sev (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
Hemiauchenia - local consensus does not override WP:UNSOURCED: .... should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Please reference the articles or change them back to redirects. --John B123 (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but why was the accepted solution to this the creation of two dozen unsourced stubs? That's not a good state of affairs by any measure. Why not just have a redlinkdelink until a sourced stub is created? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:26, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

For fucks sake. I did what I was asked to by members of the community and do not appreciate being berated as if I am the sole instigator of this problem, I explicitly said the stubs were unsourced. I am currently working on improving Clypecaris, Almenia appears to be a junior synonym of Cindarella so I redirected that one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

See WP:BURDEN: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. --John B123 (talk) 20:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, while you have done nothing but complain I've already fixed half the entries. Hemiauchenia (talk)
@Hemiauchenia: If pointing out your disregard for one of the Wikipedia:Core content policies, WP:VERIFY, is complaining, then yes I'm guilty. Another policy you might want to look at is WP:CIVIL. --John B123 (talk) 21:59, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
I've now fixed all the entries, redirecting the ones that had barely any refs or were synonyms. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! See, if these had been Taiwanese municipalities or something like that they'd have sat there unsourced for a year until someone finally blew a gasket, which is why I get jumpy when unsourced stubs appear in the double digits :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:53, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Quaternary extinction event

This article is in need of a massive cleanup, it gets over 500 views a day. The whole discussion of the Quaternary extinction event is requires nuance, which this article does not have, large sections are uncited and it's just a big mess, is anyone interested in helping me clean this up?

I honestly feel that this article needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:47, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't understand what is bad about it? The article has 318 citations, is broad in scope with various hypotheses listed and lists of genera and species that now somehow are removed (why?). As the most recent extinction event that was global it will always be "a bit messy" because of the broad coverage. What is your problem with the article? Tisquesusa (talk) 14:51, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Like a lot of wikipedia articles that have received lots of drive by additions, I think a lot of the content of the article is good but the structure is poor. I think that the lists of exinct animals by continent can be split into a separate article to increase coherency of the main text. Large amounts of the text are not properly cited and might be WP:OR, there's little discussion of specific well tracked extinctions like those of the Woolly Mammoth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
In my view the lists of extinct taxa are best shown in a wikitable form with percentages per group, I remember having seen that data somewhere, but I don't recall where exactly. Isn't the idea of an overview article that specifics about the woolly mammoth are not pushed too much, yet belong in that article? Else you get bias towards certain animals, just that what an overview article should avoid. There may be some updating needed with the research of the last years included, but overall the article looks fine to me. Tisquesusa (talk) 16:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
It's missing a coherent history of research section, like the recognition of extinction in the early 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, the origin of Paul S Martin's overkill hypothesis, which is reduced to a single sentence. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Mustelodon

I've just looking the articles of viverravids and I noticed that Mustelodon lacks of references, and I couldn't find any book or journal that uses that name (well, just one, but is a book that cites Wikipedia). I find suspicious it, considering that the information says that it's a mammal from the Paleocene of Panama, and the oldest mammals that I know from there are from the Miocene. Maybe it's a hoax?--Rextron (talk) 08:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

the only place I'm finding it is on the book Felines of the World from 2019, and it's only a brief mention that it was an early member of Viverravidae   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  12:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
My guess it that this taxon does not exist; not sure if the alleged species name M. primerus is even possible, correct would be M. primus. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Even if the taxon is poorly documented, you would expect there to be a physical record of a Lago Nandarajo or Lake Nandarajo in Panama.
Nada. It's a hoax. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 16:03, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes, this taxon might be a hoax. There are no mentionts of this genus in the both "Theodore Sherman Palmer: Index Generum Mammalium: A List of the Genera and Families of Mammals" from 1904, and "Malcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level" from 1997. These books are best sources from 20th century where you can look for data about some extinct mammal taxons discovered between 1800s and 1997. Also, none of the science papers since 1997 ever mentioned this genus.--The Explaner (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm going to start an AfD if nobody else objects. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Done. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

This article exists in four other languages. What is the best way to let these other projects know about this apparent hoax? Enwebb (talk) 21:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, at 14 years, 8 months, 29 days, this could be the longest lived documented hoax, the current record is 14 years, 5 months, 30 days. Enwebb (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
I just set this article as AfD on Serbian Wikipedia.--The Explaner (talk) 21:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
I created a discussion on WikiProject Palaeontology in Spanish. Looks like it still has some watchers. I've never nominated for deletion in another language, so I hope someone there can see and take care of it. Similarly, I created a machine-translated post on Catalan WikiProject Mammals, which doesn't appear super active. Enwebb (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
The version in Spanish is already nominated.--Rextron (talk) 06:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Looks like deletion has now been proposed on all language version except Dutch. Enwebb (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
deletion proposal on Dutch Wikipedia is now also done. --Dick Bos (talk) 06:46, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
We should also remember to remove mentions of Mustelodon from other articles   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
@Dunkleosteus77: Done, removed from all mainspace articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mustelodon Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, a small clue might be that Panama doesn't have a "northern border" (other than a very tiny strip): it's bounded on the north and south by sea as per File:Pm-map.png. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:16, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
This is currently the longest running hoax in Wikipedia history, at 14 years and 9 months. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:51, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more like it, our prehistoric mammal article's haven't gotten much love until recently, with many groups so obscure that few would notice such hoaxes... We still have a huge amount of prehistoric mammal genus red links as well. FunkMonk (talk) 00:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
The double negative is pretty confusing there, but I agree there are likely to be other non-obvious hoax articles, the problem is that simply few people care for the pre-Quaternary Cenozoic in comparison to the Mesozoic. There's also this issue that relatively few people are reading those articles. Arguably we should be prioritising the articles on Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Popular pages to maximise our impact on readers rather than focusing on creating articles that might average 1 view per day. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Such mammals are just really hard to write about, because they get little scientific attention as well, and therefore have really messy taxonomies (I wouldn't have been able to do Paraceratherium if I didn't have a book that synthesised the huge literature). I'd like to do an entelodont one day, I think Archaeotherium might be the easiest contender. FunkMonk (talk) 09:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Ictognathus

I need to mention that also genus Ictognathus is here on Wikipedia placed as member of family Miacidae. This genus is actually a conodont, so someone should take care of that error.--The Explaner (talk) 15:53, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I couldn't find any mention of some genus of any animal called "Ictognathus", beside the mirror pages of Wikipedia. The few references is about a conodont called Elictognathus, and is funny that the reference of the article is about invertebrates, so the article may be another hoax.--Rextron (talk) 10:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
It is another hoax. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The creator, Wilhelmina Will, is an otherwise reliable editor, so I wonder if it is some kind of mistake? FunkMonk (talk) 10:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Having apparently been pinged into this discussion, I've checked the revision history of this article, and I have to ask why you are crediting me with its creation? It predates my joining up with Wikipedia by over a year and a half, and its first revision is credited to a user named Cinala. It does not look as if I ever even edited this page. Reddit clarifies why beggars CAN'T be choosers. On the other hand, Wikipedia clarifies why editors CAN be choosers!!! (talk) 14:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi, my comment with the pings was in response to the commet above mine about Ictognathus, whose first edit says "00:04, May 30, 2008‎ Wilhelmina Will talk contribs‎ 528 bytes +528‎ Created this one from scratch. It was difficult to find much context over the internet, however". FunkMonk (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the clarification. In that case, in reply to Jens Lallensack, I can honestly say this was not a hoax article, and I suffer an inclination to resent the supposition that it was. It was made at a time when I had an extremely novice understanding of what websites could be considered reliable sources. Reddit clarifies why beggars CAN'T be choosers. On the other hand, Wikipedia clarifies why editors CAN be choosers!!! (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@Wilhelmina Will: Please forgive me, I never wanted to affront anybody (and will avoid the word "hoax" in the future completely). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
It was originally cited to TripAtlas.com (Fram removed the citation), and the archived version here does include a genus Ictognathus. So good faith error seems likely. Enwebb (talk) 14:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Though this original source is actually the Wikipedia article Carnivoramorpha, so the error was introduced to Wikipedia before this article was created. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone want me to start another AfD? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes.--The Explaner (talk) 18:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@The Explaner: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ictognathus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

The source and more hoaxes

I'm pretty sure I've managed to find the ultimate origin of Ictognathus. Interestingly it appears to have originated on the Dutch Wikipedia with this revision of the Miacidae article by Erik R on the 22 March 2005, this was then subsequently copied and transferred to other wikis. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

It appears that there wasn't even a single source in this revision, so Ictognathus has to be some kind of hoax. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 18:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Interestingly Cinala, the same hoaxster behind Mustelodon, was also behind the translation of the Miacidae article from NL Wiki into english in one of his only two substantial edits, but this is in November 2005, months after the initial addition of Ictognathus Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Also of note "Mustelodon" is also found within the 2005 revision. Another apparent hoax Eosictis Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Eosictis does exist, not a hoax. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Oops, the original NL version mispelled it as "Eostictis" which threw off the scholar results. Maybe Mustelodon and Ictognathus are also mispellings? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't think those two are misspellings of existing genera. The content of Mustelodon is fantasy, and Ictognathus seems to be an invented combination: existing genera such as Pappictidops and Pseudictops share the "ict", and "gnathus" means jaw. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
As I previously mentioned, Mustelodon was originally added to the NL Miacidae article in March 2005, but the Mustelodon article was created in November 2005 on Enwiki by a different user. There's no definitive evidence that Erik R is Cinala. I agree that the Mustelodon article Cinala created is very likely a hoax, given the fake locality name and the "north border of Panama" but the creation of the article is separate from the initial use of the name on NL Wiki on what was otherwise a mostly constructive edit. There may be an earlier source of the names on some long forgotten self published taxonomy website lost to time, but who knows. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Felid merge proposals

I have proposed merging the articles Panthera schreuderi and P. toscana to the article Panthera gombaszoegensis, as the former two are mere junior synonyms. Please comment here.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 23:49, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

If those are clear cut cases, you should add merge tags to the articles to attract more attention. FunkMonk (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I have done so. Thank you for the reminder. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Coelurosauravus jaekeli

I undid some changes to Coelurosauravus jaekeli because they broke the taxobox. An editor has now just changed the text of the article to change the binomial, but not moved it nor changed the taxobox. Could someone look at it please? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Transferred to Weigeltisaurus. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:00, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Hominid fossil stubs and short articles - merge?

While reviewing Paranthropus boisei, I noticed the user Nowimnthing created dozens of short or stub articles for hominid fossils back in 2006 (see here and sub-cats[4]). Today, some of them have been expanded to a point that could justify keeping them separate (though much of this info is about the taxa, not the specimens themselves, and therefore WP:content forks), but many remain short stubs with little logic as to why they would remain separate from their respective taxon articles (see for example Peninj Mandible or AL 200-1). I'd suggest most of them be merged, but since it's a significant number of articles, it needs a wider discussion. An alternative could be merging them and their info into List of human evolution fossils, as was done with the informally named dinosaurs articles. FunkMonk (talk) 14:11, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:10, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

All eyes needed

I just found this article with a large portion of the text that was added by the subject themselves, Michael Wachtler, who appears to be promoting self published pseudoscience paleontology.--Kevmin § 01:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Does he meet the notability baseline to even have an article?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:36, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't think he does; the article should be deleted. Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
A lot of text in the article sure doesn't pertain directly to him. Don't think we need a detailed exposition of Megachirella wachtleri in a BLP. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
The entire article beyond the Life section sounds like an editorial; just pick out any sentence at random and it sounds wholly un-encyclopedic and far too flowery, "Unimpressed by the charges brought up and the prison sentences, Michael Wachtler is considered more and more to be the "warning voice" against the destruction of nature in the Dolomites. Although the DoloMythos Museum is in danger of being closed by the authorities, he continues to fight without pause and more than ever before to raise the awareness of humans for the fragile environment"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I have started a deletion discussion
I think many of the references also seem unreliable, but I'm not sure. The whole article also seems a bit strange; agreed that a detailed section for an animal discovery is unnecessary, and a lot of sentences do seem un-encyclopedic. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:06, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, what is the purpose of the Prehistoric reptile article? It feels like a relic from 2009. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:09, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Err, maybe redirect to Evolution of reptiles? Seems like a pointless WP:Content fork. FunkMonk (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The article about Hesham Sallam

While looking through dinosaur articles, I noticed that Hesham Sallam, the describer of Mansourasaurus, has an article, despite not having a lot of notable contributions to paleontology under his name. Looking deeper, I discovered some... odd things about the page. See my analysis on the talk page. Atlantis536 (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've nominated the article for deletion. Atlantis536 (talk) 12:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
I commented there, the gist being that it is unfortunate we have so few articles about non-western scientists, and many sources about him are probably in Arabic. Anyway, that's not based on Wikipedia gui8delines necessarily, so let's see how it goes. But I think we can be more lax for the sake of balance. FunkMonk (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Oculudentavis, the saga continues

The preprint for the second specimen has been made available which has been submitted to eLife and will probably be formally published soon, there is also an interesting accompanying NatGeo piece, which is worth a read. Oculudentavis is definitely a lizard, but with an uncertain placement. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

So who will dare draw our life restoration of it? FunkMonk (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Both skulls have been crushed in proportionally different ways, a restoration is given in the preprint (p. 27) which represents a compromise between the two, and on a technical level looks quite good., the amber dripping around what looks like the living lizard to obscure the unknown hind sections does look incredibly goofy though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:39, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
That reconstruction should be under a free CC licence once published in eLife anyways, right, so we can use it directly? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:07, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Schöningen forest elephant merge discussion

Based on the notability discussion that happened during the withdrawn DYK nomination, I have started a merge discussion on talk:Schöningen forest elephant, input is requested.--Kevmin § 15:26, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Parirau ataroa moved to mainspace

I called an AfD on the draft of this article in July which resulted in it being kept. The article has now been moved to mainspace at Parirau ataroa and I have opened up a second deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parirau ataroa. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Correlations tables

Tisquesusa has started to add "correlations" tables which show a rather random selection of formations from a given time period and shows a point system graph of what has been found in the formations. See Victorlemoinea and Golden Valley Formation. the problem is there is no indication of what sources are used for each table, and from my perspective they seem like rather wp:coatrackish information dumps collectons. For the Golden Valley formation, why have the rest of the Okanagan highlands formations been left off (Klondike Mountain Formation, McAbee Fossil Beds, Driftwood Canyon etc, while several formations with no articles are on the table. thoughts?--Kevmin § 01:19, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not keen on them, for all the reasons you give. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't like it either. If we want something like this, we need sources like Fowler (2017) [5]. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:59, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
I already dislike the San Juan Cretaceous stratigraphy image that has been slapped on to numerous formation articles (e.g. Kirtland Formation), which poorly represents the complex intertonguing relationships of the San Juan basin. But I can at least imagine it being useful for some reader somewhere, and it's probably okay appearing just once in San Juan Basin. This one has the potential to be slapped onto hundreds of articles and shed almost no light in any of them. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 02:08, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
I assume your comment is re: Fowler? I don't disagree, these sources need to be judiciously used in articles in a way that complements and illustrates surrounding prose, instead of replacing it altogether. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Steneosaurus finally exploded

The wastebasket taxon Steneosaurus was finally broken up, but that leaves a lot of new articles for us to create (I'm not sure I've seen so many new genera named in a single paper before), and synonyms to redirect (and free images to upload), so please have a look: https://peerj.com/articles/9808/?fbclid=IwAR3kGmKVKlYj40gUCpYLt2Il81ntg-acIy0jgjNAeBid9KILf3jS6Vc77Y4 FunkMonk (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Cleaning up the Walking with... stuff

Though not a palaeontological subject per se, there is no denying the influence the Walking with... series of documentaries has had on the latest generations of fans of dinosaur and other prehistoric animals, which is why I feel like this is an appropriate place to bring this up. I'm trying to do some work in cleaning up the coverage of them, I've for instance expanded Sea Monsters, but there is a lot of unnecessary and excessive stuff on here. I've nominated three articles for deletion, so I encourage anyone interested to participate in these discussions; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of creatures by Impossible Pictures (a ridiculous unsourced list with tonnes of original research), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dinosaur World (video game) (not a notable subject to begin with) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life (not sure why this book in particular needs a Wikipedia article). Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I remember having to go home from primary school after playing Dinosaur World at lunch time as it made me nauseous, I have a copy of it on my computer for some reason. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
I also remember playing the game as a kid; it's nostalgic to be sure but I don't believe it to be a notable subject. Additionally, if some sources are found, it could perhaps be better accomodated within the Walking with Dinosaurs article (which already has subsections on the book version of the series, the "arena spectacular" and the movie). Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
Definitely agree it could probably find a better home there. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree the game could just be merged. Now you mention it, I also remember playing it as a kid, but it didn't leave much of an impression, haha... FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Here's another AfD tangentially related to Palaeontology: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of creatures in Primeval (4th nomination). Ichthyovenator (talk) 09:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Likewise, I also tagged Prehistoric Planet (which is just a recut of the other series) for merging long ago, but nothing happened. FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree that Prehistoric Planet should be merged. Seeing as there's been no opposition to the merge suggestion for over a year I feel like maybe it would be okay to just go ahead and merge them? Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe what's now the intro could just be a section in the walking with article? Then the list can just be ignored. But I wonder if there are any useful sources about it?FunkMonk (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the list could be ignored seeing as it's just a list of animals (and there does not appear to be any differences between the animals featured here and the animals features in the original series seeing as it's a recut). It seems to be quite obscure so finding sources is a bit difficult (this was a problem even for the more well-known Sea Monsters), but perhaps this article could be used, if only for a few statements. The Walking with Dinosaurs article has a paragraph on the review by Common Sense Media for that series; Common Sense Media has a review for Prehistoric Planet as well, so perhaps that could also be used. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
It's amazing how there are people who want to keep the list around. A truly terrible list. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 21:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
At least one person is probably disagreeing on principle. But with luck and policy, this will be the time it gets deleted.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 21:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree that article is absolute afwul wikia-tier fancruft, makes the "List of cloned animals in the Jurassic Park series" look like a masterpiece by comparison. The random non-primeval illustrations of the animals is the icing on the cake, really. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree with all of you Lythronaxargestes, SilverTiger12 & Hemiauchenia; it astounds me that it has survived three AfD:s. So far there's only three (surprising in of itself) keeps against six (or seven, I dunno if I count as the nominator) deletes. Perhaps fate will finally catch up to it. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Brief notification

Hey, just stopping by to let yall know that I have (a) nominated the redirect Pratifelis for speedy deletion (Db-move), and (b) plan to move the article Pratifelis martini there as per normal policy to treat prehistoric species at the genus page. I also plan to expand the article once it's moved with what little mentions of it I could track down, so please don't mess with it yet. Happy editing! SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Considering the article has had only 20 edits in its decade long history, I think it's fine. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Description recency privilege

New research came out of Saccorhytus showing that it was in fact not a deuterostome, but an ecdysozoan. The article is therefore in need of a rewrite in light of this. However, rewriting the description section has me stumped; should the description privilege recent research, or should it be equally weighted on both its former interpretation as a deuterostome and its newfound one as an ecdysozoan? Giant Blue Anteater (talk) 22:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Considering how quickly these things change, I think the best thing we can do is state when there are different views and attribute the authors in text. A similar case could be Tullimonstrum. FunkMonk (talk) 22:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
As far as I am aware, the new article is still only a pre-print and has not been peer reviewed or published, it should not be incorporated into the article until it has done so. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:30, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Given that it is a preprint, the article should not be rewritten to focus on its perspective yet, although it may be worth briefly mentioning. If this research is properly published, I think the article should be written to put more emphasis on the new interpretation. After all, there is only one previous paper for the older interpretation and the new interpretation is based on additional material—it's not like this is overturning an established consensus or simply reinterpreting the same controversial fossils. Ornithopsis (talk) 20:10, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Possible source misrepresentation on an article.

The Picrodon article has recently came to my attention, and reading it, I discovered what may be misrepresentation of sources. See my discussion on the talk page. Atlantis536 (talk) 01:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Burmese amber albanerpetontid has been described

The first albanerpetontid to be described from Burmese amber, Yaksha peretti including a 3d dimensionally preserved skull, the first known for an albanerpetontid has just been published in Science, the skull is so good that it is probably worth creating a diagram of. The interpretation of albanerpetontids lifestyle from the new remains is also interesting, the bone arrangement suggest that they had ballistic tongues like chameleons. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

"Ballistic Tongues". That would be an excellent name for a rock band. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
"Ballistic feeders" is also a great name. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion at Talk:Selenotherium

Just a brief notice to flag the move discussion at Talk:Selenotherium. It is listed in the article alerts on the project page, but the blurb is very minimalistic. To me, it looks like the sources show that the title should be moved from Selenotherium to Selenetherium, but input from people with more expertise than I have of interpreting scholarly paleontology sources would be appreciated! --bonadea contributions talk 12:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised there is even dissent, considering the authors spelled it with an e.[6] FunkMonk (talk) 12:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Semicircular canals don't correlate precisely with head posture after all

A new study just came out[7] that finally tests whether semicircular canal orientation correlates with the head posture of animals in life, finding it is not necessarily the case, though this has been assumed for over a century, and has been applied to various extinct animals. FACs such as Nigersaurus, Amargasaurus, and Irritator state it as fact, but we should probably use more cautious language from now on. At least Nigersaurus is mentioned in the paper, so it can be cited directly in that article, and the Irritator paper is cited as well, so should be fine too. FunkMonk (talk) 21:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

And oddly enough as if on cue, right after comes a paper[8] which tries to infer the alert head posture of Triceratops by the above method, which should therefore be taken with a grain of salt. FunkMonk (talk) 11:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Well, they still found a correlation, so it is not a complete dismissal. And they do not directly question the Nigersaurus paper at all. It is still possible (or even likely?) that the semicircular canals reflect a tendency for Nigersaurus to have a more vertical head than seen in other sauropods; it is just that the evidence for this is not as strong as previously assumed. But yes, we need to formulate it more carefully. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:15, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, the papers that use it always orient the head posture directly after how the canal is angled when it is straight horizontal, so though it has some bearing on posture, they are too rigid in their interpretation, is how I understand it. Is the text[9] I added to Nigersaurus balanced enough? FunkMonk (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Looks good; I would add that they tested it on modern mammals, otherwise people might think they somehow tested it on Nigersaurus, or dinosaurs in general, directly. A minor nitpick: A correlation cannot be "precise", it can be strong or weak. The method can be precise or imprecise. Maybe this could be reformulated? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Good ideas, and I'll see if I can specifically mention/specify diagnostic features in Nigersaurus too, seems I didn't do that much in the first dinosaur FACs I worked on... FunkMonk (talk) 19:11, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm still not sure if all diagnostic features should always be mentioned, though I usually did so in my articles. Often these are tiny details that even a specialist sometimes won't fully understand without a figure. They make an article very difficult to read, and may discourage folks from reading on. On the other hand, they give the reader at least some idea about how these taxa are defined. Maybe it is best to have them in a paragraph of their own rather than spread across the description section, so that a reader can quickly skip it (I now did so for Carnotaurus). Maybe that paragraph should be under taxonomy ("Classification" section?) anyways since they define the taxon? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
I think it has mostly been understandable enough (with some glossing), but yeah, in some cases, as with some of the new diagnostic definitions I added to Dilophosaurus, it can be very hard to explain or even to udnerstand myself. But personally, I think if few of the features are understandable, but most of them are, I'd keep them in description (as was also the case with Dilophosaurus). On the other hand, I have often added features identifying a taxon as part of a wider group under classification, where I think such belong. But it's certainly something that could be discussed further, and probably best to judge on a case to case basis (and probably up to individual writers). I have to look up the sources for Nigersaurus in particular before I'm sure what's best to do there... FunkMonk (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Here's an attempt at rewording some of the head posture stuff and added diagnosis (there wasn't so much)[10], does it look ok? FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Cretaceous collab

I am currently working on text for the Cretaceous article over at User:Hemiauchenia/sandbox99999, Its difficult to know how much depth to go into in terms of change in Dinosaur faunas as well as the rise of flowering plants. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd emphasize that there is no clear downturn in dinosaur diversity prior to the K-Pg. I think this is a common assumption that a lot of recent literature focuses on challenging. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:51, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
@Dunkleosteus77:, How would you feel about a selective merger of South Polar region of the Cretaceous into the Cretaceous article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:48, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
I have no strong feelings   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  03:53, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Just for the record, I'll stay on the side-line so I can review when it comes to that (lack of palaeo-reviewers will probably be a problem if the entire project are nominators). FunkMonk (talk) 21:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
  • But as noted here[11], perhaps our next paleo and dinosaur collaborations should be focused on fixing up old FAs which risk getting demoted during the current FAR drive[12]. It is easier to save them while they're still FAs than after they get demoted, because then they'll have to go through the entire GAN and FAC processes again... FunkMonk (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Cretaceous won the vote for the Paleo collab though, so should we start that one first? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, not sure what people are in the mood for? Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event also needs to pass FAR, so perhaps it could be a trial-run for such a collab... FunkMonk (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Category rename discussion needing comments

There is a current proposal to rename a section of the fossil category tree ongoing here which could use more eyes.--Kevmin § 20:30, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Paranthropus robustus at FA

Paranthropus robustus is at FA and is about to be archived due to a lack of reviews for the 2nd time. Pretty please leave your 2 cents if you could?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I can say I'm almost done with my review, and it looks good so far, would be a shame if it was archived. There are currently three palaeo FACs (the others being Acamptonectes and Podokesaurus), which is rare and commendable, but also means the reviewer pool is limited. So let's not waste the opportunity to get three palaeo FAs at once! FunkMonk (talk) 19:59, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't know if I'll have enough time to do an exhaustive review (or enough experience, for that matter, as I only have 1 co-nomination under my belt, and no reviews)), I'm not sure if conducting a partial review is doable at FAC? If it is, I could probably chip in a few comments. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:05, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
One can always just write whatever strikes them at first, and if you get more time later, you can return to it. For me, reviewing an article rarely takes less than a few days... FunkMonk (talk) 01:08, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Paper Request and Information From Cladograms

Hello all, I'm currently working on expanding Peloneustes. I'm currently working on writing the classification section in my main sandbox, but have encountered a couple of problems. First of all, I've searched far and wide for a free copy of Ketchum & Benson (2011) or any other information on Marmornectes, but have always run into disappointment. It was one of two publications I requested at WP:REX over the summer. While I got the other one, the section went stale and was archived before I got the Marmornectes description paper. Does anyone here have a copy that they could and would be willing to send me? The full citation is:

  • Ketchum, Hilary F.; Benson, Roger B. J. (2011). "A new pliosaurid (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the Oxford Clay Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of England: Evidence for a gracile, longirostrine grade of Early-Middle Jurassic pliosaurids". Special Papers in Palaeontology. 86: 109–129.

If anyone can, it would be greatly appreciated! The second question I have is more of a technical one - can we incorporate information from cladograms that is not explicitly stated in the article text? For example, would it be okay to state that Fischer et. al. (2017) recovered Peloneustes as the earliest diverging thalassophonean even though this is never written out? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:12, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't have the paper, but since it's on researchgate[13], it may be possible to request it there? Otherwise, it probably can't hurt to request at WP:RX again. FunkMonk (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Special Papers in Paleontology are book only monographs. Like the Neovenator monograph, there's probably not an online version. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
It has a doi, though. Books consisting of research articles often have individual online versions of each chapter too. Anyhow, since it's on research gate, there should be a pdf version somewhere... FunkMonk (talk) 02:06, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
The journal website's entry for the article[14] says "Online Version Hosted By Wiley Published Book", so there must be something... ~~
The doi's actually broken. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
1) I have that paper, please check your Email! I would suggest to leave paper requests here, I think there is a good chance somebody can help quickly. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
2) Yes, I usually do that (most commonly if something is recovered as the sister taxon). If we can provide the cladogram as is, we should also be allowed to explain it to folks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
I got the paper, thanks! This should be useful! I now realize that I was actually thinking of two papers here, the one you just sent me (Marmornectes description) was the one for paleoecology. The one for classification (Thalassophonea naming) is the following one:
  • Benson, Roger B. J.; Druckenmiller, Patrick S. (2014). "Faunal turnover of marine tetrapods during the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition". Biological Reviews. 89 (1): 1–23.
Does anyone have this one? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Wiley's not on the Wikipedia library unfortunately. I was able to access the paper within seconds using Sci-Hub though, for what thats worth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:11, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, while Sci-Hub's certainly interesting, it's also quite controversial, so I think that it would be best to avoid if it's possible to get through request. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:38, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Please check your email again! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Got it, thanks! --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 00:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Geological timescale and popups page preview bug?

I'm not sure the best place to report this, but, as I was hovering over the T(riassic) on the geological timescale which sits atop taxoboxes, I noticed that, for unknown reasons, the numbers indicating the mya in the preview page preview were missing, as if some mechanism were failing to put them there. If you hover over Triassic, the lead sentences are missing the second one of the bracketing numbers. If these numbers are not part of a template when they appear in the lead (or so I thought), why are they able to drop out like this? I'm going to ask at the Village Pump/Technical--Quisqualis (talk) 06:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Clarification of popups page preview problem above

Village Pump:Technical seems a bit befuddled by what I mean, so:

In hovering over Horseshoe crab's timescale atop the infobox, D(evonian), whose article lead reads,

"is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian, 419.2 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, 358.9 Mya,"

pops up as

"is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous,"

Notice the random omission of one or both of the bracketing numbers.

The missing numbers will vary by period, as each one seems to have some random omission: Cambrian is missing the second one, Ordovician lacks both, Silurian lacks both, Devonian lacks both, Carboniferous lacks both, Permian lacks the first number, Triassic lacks the second number, etc. I rather doubt this is specific to my preferences, as I get the preview popups page previews, but with random missing data. Please feel free to request clarification.--Quisqualis (talk) 16:28, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

They use the {{Period start}} and {{Period end}} templates, which presumably are not transcluded onto the popups page preview. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:28, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
So popups page previews are not just verbatim lead sentences. The new mystery is why the transclusion is so spotty: Half-on, off, fully on... Makes me wonder if something manual got involved there and if I might manually "fix" those popups page previews. The dates of the eras aren't too likely to be revised, which is the main downside I see to this theoretical manual fix.--Quisqualis (talk) 18:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Quisqualis: Discussions around this template change have happened over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geology#Proposal_to_replace_geological_period/epoch/era_etc._templates_with_a_unified_infobox-like_template spearheaded by Benniboi01, who is probably the best person to ask about this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks; will seek answers per your suggestions.--Quisqualis (talk) 01:52, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
@Quisqualis: On my end I can see most of the information in the preview box, but I can see how the information could get cut off on smaller screens. I'll see what I can do about this issue.Benniboi01 (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Benniboi01, I use a computer for Wikipedia, and in fact the numbers are simply missing in my page previews. Erased mid-text. The gap is closed. So it's not a question of being cut off or bad formatting. Thanks for your help.--Quisqualis (talk) 21:22, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Oh, that's strange. I'm not really sure how to fix that.Benniboi01 (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Should the page Thalassodromidae be renamed as Thalassodrominae?

I was discussing this with FunkMonk at the talk page of Thalassodromeus. So there's this subfamily/family controversy about this group (neither of them have the same definition in terms of classification), and my opinion is that considering Thalassodrominae was named first, it should be article's name. More detail about our discussion is at the Thalassodromeus talk page if anyone wants to know more about the subject, as I said earlier. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 23:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I feel like this is a non-issue. Thalassodrominae is a redirect that takes users to what they want to see regardless, provided that the page has appropriate discussion of the usage of the two different names. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 07:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Hm, you do have a good point there. But then again I think it's just about the naming priority, or the studies that use the name? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 08:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A bit off topic, but the pterosaur navbox currently uses Dsungaripteromorpha. Has anyone even used this clade recently? It currently seems that Thalassodromeus & Tupuxuara either wind up in the azhdarchid-chaoyangopterid group or within Tapejaridae, with Dsungaripteridae basal to all three/four families, so it may not be a bad idea to change the navbox to reflect this. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:07, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Thalassodrominae is actually shown in Tapejaridae in the navbox, but just with its name, not the members (perhaps we could transfer the members in Tapejaridae, and just put the question mark with the group name in Dsungaripteromorpha, to reflect recent studies). As for the clade Dsungaripteromorpha, I think the only one who used this clade recently is Longrich et al. (2018). JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Hot Articles frozen

The Hot Artices section of the Wikiproject page appears to have been frozen since late November, which is strange considering that they seem to be updating fine on other projects like WP:DINO. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Odd, maybe the operator, Kaldari, could be contacted? FunkMonk (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: It stopped working because Category:WikiProject Palaeontology articles (the category that the bot has been configured to look for articles in) doesn't have any article in it. It looks like this is a result of MSGJ's edit from November. You can either undo that edit or configure the bot to look for articles in a different category. Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
Forgot to ping Hemiauchenia as well. Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
Oops, sorry! arrow Reverted — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for that! FunkMonk (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Aigialosuchus - what to do if sources are lacking?

I have for some time aspired to push Aigialosuchus, a Late Cretaceous crocodylomorph from Sweden, to GA and while the article includes, as far as I know, virtually everything that can be said of the animal, two important details are missing: 1) a size estimate (and an accompanying size comparison image) and 2) why it is classified as a member of the Dyrosauridae. Fossils of Aigialosuchus are fragmentary so it is not surprising that no published size estimates exist, but it feels like one could easily have been made considering one of the fossils is a rather large part of its skull (irritatingly, there are no published measurements of the entire fossil either), they just haven't done one. Including a size estimate in the article would then be original research, right? I assume it would be okay to leave out the size, as in Acamptonectes?

The other issue is that up until ~2015, Aigialosuchus is consistently treated as enigmatic and "probably" an eusuchian, but after ~2015, a whole lot of papers just flat out call it a dyrosaurid (not a group within Eusuchia), but with no reference to where, when and why it was classified as such. I haven't found a single paper which describes why this is. Asking here to see if there have been similar situations in the past or if there is some recommended way to approach this. Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

On the size estimate issue, yeah, you can't write something that has never been published, and that can't be held against you either. I even asked the main author of the Acamptonectes paper if any size estimates would be published in the future, and he said no... I was lucky when I wrote Dromaeosauroides, about the first named Danish dinosaur, that while it was also only named from teeth, the discovery was so famous nationally that size estimates were published, though not in a scientific paper, but in a book about Danish fossils, and in an interview. Don't know if something similar can be found for this one? FunkMonk (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, not sure if the descriptor of Aigialosuchus (Persson) is still active (or alive??? - can't find anything on or by him past the 90s), but perhaps (if nothing else turns up) I could attempt to contact the modern frontrunners of Swedish Cretaceous research and see what's up. I've got two books about Swedish fossils, the first one only briefly touches upon Cretaceous fauna and doesn't go into much detail (Aigialosuchus isn't mentioned) and the second one only brings up invertebrates. It's a shame since there is a lot of cool things found in the Kristianstad Basin that the general public knows next to nothing about since the info rarely makes it out of academia. Ichthyovenator (talk) 18:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Concerning the classification: I would not cite Bachelor or Master theses, I think those are not considered acceptable sources. PhD theses are, however. So it seems to be Kear et al. 2016 who made this claim? Then I would just state that in the article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what level all of the theses are at but do you mean not at all, or just at that place in the article (classification)? If they are unacceptable overall, a lot of the stuff in the article will need to be removed. Ichthyovenator (talk) 18:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I have used master theses at FAC before, though (such as in Kosmoceratops), but I think if you use them, you should make sure in-text that they are just that. And where possible, use published sources that say the same thing. FunkMonk (talk) 19:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I've made an attempt at going about it the best possible way considering the source material at hand and GA nominated; if stuff is in error it'll hopefully be cleared up during the process. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
You appear to have read everything published regarding this beast. I agree that it would be OR/SYNTH to comment on its overall size. As for the classification, my thoughts are: is it conceivable that, around 2015, the definition of one of those two clades was altered? I actually doubt that ever happens, but I would skim over the titles of (taxonomy) literature on Dyrosauridae and Eusuchia (and whichever higher clade connects them) to make certain. Alternatively, did the major researchers around this species have a colloquy of some sort, not publishing the result, but acting on it? I suppose it's allowed to contact these experts in order to to verify such things (primarily by being pointed to any obscure published sources which may exist).--Quisqualis (talk) 21:56, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Those were my thoughts also (about possible changing definitions), but I had a hard time figuring out how to put it to words, so nice job! Because I have seen elsewhere that a clade name is changed in sources that don't deal with a particular species or genus within it, and therefore you would be hard pressed to find a source connecting the two. As an example, the genus Palaeornis was synonymised with Psittacula, hence various species within it ended up in that genus, but there is therefore not a particular source that says one particular species was moved to Psittacula. FunkMonk (talk) 22:05, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
It is likely that the authors of the three sources currently cited in regards to it being a dyrosaurid are in contact with each other since Källsten and Kear are both from Uppsala University and all three authors are active in Sweden. Eusuchia appears to have been last redefined in 1999 by Brochu and I can't find much taxonomic info on Dyrosauridae, but it appears to have consistently been non-Eusuchian for quite some time. If Kear et al (2018) apparently cites Kear et al (2016) for Aigialosuchus being a dyrosaurid then there might really not be anything published about a reclassification. Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
FYI, Kear et al. 2018 cite a dyrosaurid position for Aigialosuchus to their 2016 paper, so I think that'd be the best way to go here too. I think this is just one of those conclusions which gets thrown in a paper without comment (cf. also specimens moved from Similicaudipteryx to Incisivosaurus in a footnote...) Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:07, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
So remove the bachelor's theses entirely? Also, isn't citing your own paper, which doesn't really substantiate anything, in that way a bit strange?? On a sidenote, I don't have access to this paper, does it say anything else relevant about Aigialosuchus? Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I think the thesis doesn't add much. Here's what the 2018 paper says, it's also a throwaway comment:

(Aigialosuchus Persson, 1959; considered a gavialoid or dyrosaurid: Kear, Lindgren et al. 2016, Puértolas-Pascual et al. 2016)

Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 00:05, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Thank you. I've removed both the theses from the article and cited Kear 2016 as the first proper use of Aigialosuchus as a dyrosaur. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
  • On the subject of lacking sources, I'm nearly done with my expansion of Peloneustes, but I have not found anything in the peer-reviewed literature explaining the etymology. Does anyone know of any good sources for this? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 16:46, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
We have sometimes used dictionaries for such, but may be problematic if it is to find the meaning of combined words... But in theory, you could probably use a (Latin?) dictionary. FunkMonk (talk) 17:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
How reliable is this list? I worry that breaking it apart and using a dictionary to define each part of it would count as WP:SYNTH. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 18:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Since it's compiled by Ben Chreisler, who has both published on etymologies[15], and often writes about them on the dinosaur mailing list, I'd say it's much better than using dictionaries. FunkMonk (talk) 19:43, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Regarding etymology sources, I'm trying to do an overhaul of the article Pteranodon (I know it's a very hard thing to do, but still), and I was looking for etymology sources and happen to stumble upon this dictionary for the name origin, is it reliable enough though? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Oxford should be reliable, yeah, unless you can find a more "specialised" palaeontology source that says the same. FunkMonk (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Weirdest view spike ever

Just thought I'd share the most bizarre view spike I've ever seen. Rosamygale is an obscure genus of fossil spider from the early Middle Triassic of France, and is the oldest known member of Mygalomorphae (trap door spiders, tarantulas etc) and is therefore an important phylogenetic calibration point. Prior to December, the article averaged one view per day. Somehow, this very obscure genus of fossil spider ended up featuring in an issue of One Piece, the world's most popular manga. This lead to a view spike during December, which at its peak on the 11th of December reached the absurd value of 31,133 views per day, and the article has received over 122,000 views since the publication of the issue, and still averages around 179 views per day. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Well somebody should probably work on it before the anime catches up and the next mega-viewership wave hits   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Always interesting to see obscure taxa catapulted into the spotlight. I have to wonder how the author heard of this taxon... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Oh yeah, good opportunity if someone wants to expand it! FunkMonk (talk) 10:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser

A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:28, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Towards a more systematic treatment of tetrapod skull bones

We have loads of random stub articles on tetrapod skull bones, like jugal bone and quadrate bone, and many others on important skull bones like maxilla where human anatomy is the primary focus, and other animals are only incidentally mentioned. I propose the creation of glossary of tetrapod skull bones where each individual bone can be given a more systematic treatment, without focus on human anatomy. Thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

We could expand the non-human section of skull into an independent glossary. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Something needs to be done here, definitely.
  • A glossary is one solution, but with multiple glossaries we should have a clear plan/hierarchy. If we have a glossary on skulls, we still would want to have glossaries on all the different clades (e.g., the dinosaur glossary), and this quickly gets redundant. I feel we should have glossaries on the anatomy of clades or on different body parts, but not on both. Maybe we could instead have a Glossary of reptile anatomy (including the skull bones), and a hierarchy of more specialized glossaries below that (such as the dinosaur glossary)?
  • I am thinking, however, if articles might be more suitable here. Glossaries focus on the terminology, they are not strong in emphasizing the important points, in teaching anatomy in a systematic way, or describe evolutionary patterns. What about a Anatomy of reptiles article, with a sub-article on the skull? The classical "Osteology of reptiles" by Romer would be an ideal base for such articles. Maybe glossaries and articles can/should supplement each other here.
  • The third option I see is to have dedicated "other vertebrates" sections in every human bone article such as maxilla; and if that section gets too long, we could split into sub-articles like maxilla (vertebrates) or something.
We really need a long-term plan I think, where we all agree on. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I probably like the third option the best for most of the skull bones. For those without clear analogues in humans, we can give them their own pages. I've already done so with a few, like postparietal and quadratojugal. I should also note that this issue is not intrinsic to skull bones, as pages like humerus and ilium could also use some expansions for non-human vertebrates. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
I also think expanding the general articles to include other animals would be best, otherwise we could potentially end up with multiple glossaries with very similar content. FunkMonk (talk) 18:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, expanding the general articles on the different bones would also be the natural approach. And possibly the easiest, because we can do it step-by-step. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Pangaea#Life

The Life section of the heavily trafficked Pangaea article is badly in need of a rewrite, and also of a more topical focus. At present, it's a not very well sourced mishmash of some evolutionary developments during the time frame between the assembly of Pangaea and its breakup. That's not really needed. However, this section could be interesting and relevant if it focused specifically on how the assembly of Pangaea affected the evolution of life. For example, what kind of ecological niches were created (or destroyed) by its assembly and breakup? How did its assembly affect biodiversity and speciation? Alas, I haven't the references on hand to do a proper job of this. I can dredge up lots of papers investigating various small corners of this topic, but nothing like a good review paper on the topic as a whole. Anyone know of some good sources I could look at?

Since changes to climate are likely a big part of this, I suspect the correct logical flow is to swap the "Life" and "Climate" sections so that the reader will first learn about distinctive climate patterns of Pangaea (megamonsoons? that jumps out from the sources I've dredged) and then read about how that affected the evolution of life.

I've posted the same observation and request at the article talk page, which is where I'll look for responses. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Cladistics

Currently, the Russian Wikipedia is conducting a discussion initiated by me on replacing evolutionary taxonomy with cladistics in the taxonomy of dinosaurs and synapsids, presented in the Automatic taxobox. In ruwiki, a rather strange situation is observed: in the systematics of subgroups of traditional classes presented in Automatic taxobox, cladistics is actively used, but if one of the traditional classes originated from another, then paraphyly of the second class and all its subgroups is allowed, in cladistics including the first class (but at the same time in articles on taxa, cladistic taxonomy is used as the main type of classification). For example, as a result, Avemetatarsalia and all their daughter taxa, cladistically including birds, are marked as extinct, although many of them were never even considered truly extinct. I would be interested to look at similar discussions on the English Wikipedia and find out from what sources the partially ranked cladistic classification is based on. HFoxii (talk) 18:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I totally understand the question, but here we don't mark clades as extinct if their subgroups aren't. Look at the page dinosaur, for example. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
I know. The question is mostly about whether there are authoritative sources in which the classification is given, where, for example, Saurischia classified as a unranked clade, and Ornithischia classified as a order (as here). As far as I know, most researchers on fossil vertebrates don't bother about ranks at all. Michael Benton is one of the few who still uses the ranks, and he allows them to be repeated (e.g., he classifies the Class Aves in suborder Theropoda of order Saurischia). UPD: To be honest, I'm also surprised that the idea that taxa that are not extinct should not be flagged as extinct has raised objections. Most likely, this is due to the insane conservatism of the Moscow paleontological school. HFoxii (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thought on Geological Unit Pages

Pages devoted to geological units usually have big tables detailing the paleobiota recovered from the unit. Typically, in the image section of these tables, a life restoration of the species in question is shown. However, this practice can lead to inaccurate life restorations cropping up on such pages, and sometimes pictures of different species in the same genus not actually found in the formation. I'm wondering if, perhaps, it may instead be better and more informative to include images of fossils actually found in the formation. I realize that this would be quite a broad, extensive change in many cases, over what may be minor qualms, but I thought that it might good to throw it out here anyways, just to see what others thought. Comments? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:10, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I tried to do this some places, but the images later got replaced by restorations. Not sure what the point is. Another issue with those galleries is that they often show images of for example different species in the same genera, or from different formations... FunkMonk (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Tisquesusa the only editor who really did any significant maintenance of geological formation pages aside from myself, has been recently indefinitely blocked for personal attacks. OviraptorFan I noticed regularly added life restorations to Paleobiota tables. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Tisquesusa indeffed? That's news to me. Yikes. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Yup. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Tisquesusa. Tisquesusa really did not like other editors interfering with his edits, even if they were nonsensical, for instance his regular habit of including nonexistent categories, and would tell people to "fuck off" and much worse. These issues started back in October 2019 and he didn't acknowledge the week then month long block at all, so an indef was the only real option. It's a shame, since aside from his occasional neurotic behaviour Tisquesusa was an enormously productive editor, his massive expansion of the Tendaguru Formation article in particular is impressive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Had no idea, wow. My only personal experience with him, I think, was on the Hatzegopteryx GA, which was... a handful... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Huh, well this is new to me, or maybe not, I remember when finishing the Ornithocheiromorpha GA, Tisquesusa complained about some minor details and about the reviewer himself, so yeah... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Wow, this got feedback pretty quickly! Since this proposal didn't seem to get negative feedback, I've edited the Tendaguru Formation's tables to show fossils where possible, as it already had many images of fossils in it; any thoughts on this edit? Also, another advantage of fossils is that they usually bypass much of the speculation involved in making life restorations (which occasionally can pose quite a problem, as Spinosaurus has made very clear), and they're more reflective of what actually gets dug out of the rocks. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
When I was making the Charmouth Mudstone Formation Whitby Mudstone and Blue Lias paleobiota tables I always included the fossils rather than any life restorations anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Don't think you added this image but I think the placement of the image of inverts is pretty confusing without further explanation. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't really edit these types of articles, but the changes seem good to me. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
I was always curious why the paleobiota tables used life restorations rather than fossils. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, though inaccurate life restorations should obviously be excluded. On the topic of Tisquesusa, is anyone else annoyed by their citation format? LSA does not allow for both urls and dois at the same time, and relegating the references to the end of the article makes it really difficult to use in-line citations that are actually directed towards the source in question, rather than a footnote referencing the source. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 21:01, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, Tisquesusa's citation style always bugged me for the exact reasons you describe. Given that he is now indefinitely blocked feel free to revert to the usual citation style. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:11, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Lists of prehistoric animals

I have just created Lists of prehistoric animals, identified as a missing list, but it could do with attention from someone familiar with the subject matter to improve the presentation and sorting. Thryduulf (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Would dinosaur size fit? Granted, the article is a damn mess, but... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:37, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
I just added a subsection for pterosaur lists below "land and avian animals" for now, seems fair to keep it more or less uniformed with the "dinosaurs" subsection. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 21:08, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Ameghiniana and our lists of paleontological papers

As you may know, our "20xx in paleontology" articles are regularly updated with research and taxon descriptions from all parts of the paleontological study. From cave art to indeterminate eumetazoans, an ever-changing set of IP's (possibly the same person) adds new publications hours after they become available, and is meticulous enough to update the citation templates with volume numbers, page numbers and even PMC's and PMID's as soon as they are published. But as comprehensive as this is, I noticed that our articles lack most papers from the Argentine journal Ameghiniana. I first noticed this when I saw the entry for Ninjatitan, published in that journal, was added by an "outsider", User:Montanoceratops. Wondering why our anonymous researcher didn't do it, I Google searched "'gen. et sp. nov' site:ameghiniana.org.ar" and found papers and descriptions of taxa that do not appear on Wikipedia. Some, like Amargasaurus, Pitekunsaurus, and Kawanectes are mentioned on their "years in paleontology", but not Hypohippidium humamuaquense, a horse described in 2013. I'm concerned that just by omitting research from that single journal, there might be entire taxa unknown to most of the world. And given that Wikipedia articles have been positively correlated with shaping the direction of scientific research (and that these pages were once praised by the scientists at the Dinosaur Mailing List - sorry, but I couldn't find the link), the course of future paleontological research might be seriously affected. What should we do about this? Atlantis536 (talk) 10:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

It's one guy in Poland with a dynamic IP. That said it's probably best to mention this on the 2021 in paleontology talkpage were the IP is likely to see it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:29, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
A clarification: Hypohippidium was actually described in 1957, I'm not sure why appearing in Ameghiniana as in a more recent date. And by the way, is currently considered as a synonymous of Hyppidion devillei [16]. --Rextron (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

David Peters

I've gone ahead and created the article David Peters (paleoartist) because I think that there is enough coverage to satisfy the GNG. I do intend to expand it somewhat, but its an okay start. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it's important to include Peters' background as a (credible) scientific illustrator before his output went off the rails. As it stands, the article's presentation is somewhat biased. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 13:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, he did work with actual palaeontologists back then, and his artwork from the 90s is quite good. I'm not sure if this is quite notable enough, based on the sources. FunkMonk (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
The issue is that the sources don't cover this, and I didn't use Naish's thorough 2012 response to Peters because I think it is a self published source with respect to WP:BLPSPS. I might be able to use Peters own websites for some of this information. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

New source of paleomaps?

Paleolocation mapping sources lets you enter any time and generates a paleomap. Legal says "Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, Imagery © Mapbox". What do we think about uploading and using these maps?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  07:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

In principal, paleomaps are much needed in Wikipedia. But the OpenStreetMap data are only the modern country boundaries, and I don't think the Mapbox data is under a free license. So I don't think we can copy them. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
When people create paleomaps for papers they either copy Blakey, Scotese or other copyrighted palaeomaps. I don't think adopting a similar approach and simply tracing Blakey's or another copyrightded map is particularly transformative, though. The easiest thing to do would probably be to draw a composite map based on the major Paleomapping programs. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:29, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

CfD Discussion: Correct categorization tree for synapsids

Would appreciate some more informed input on structuring the category tree in line with correct taxonomy.

See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_March_6#Category:Prehistoric_synapsids

Much obliged! BlackholeWA (talk) 14:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Fossil echinoids

The recently created Fossil echinoids article is currently on the front page as a DYK. In my opinion the article as it currently stands does nothing to justify its separation from the Sea urchin article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems an odd case. It's like having a separate article about for example fossil birds? FunkMonk (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Lists of specimens with nicknames

Came across List of dinosaur specimens with nicknames and the newly created List of non-dinosaur specimens with nicknames. Are these articles really useful? The content feels non-notable, citations are lacking, and there surely must be some overlap with List of informally named dinosaurs for the former. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I've noticed it before, and it seems a bit random, I'm sure there are hundreds of specimens with nicknames, and I'm not sure what the point of listing them is... FunkMonk (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Agree with FunkMonk, pretty pointless to list all these, I'm sure most museums have nicknames for the mounted specimens, not really a point to list all of them. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Pointless, especially the non-dinosaur one, which would technically imply all fossil specimens that aren't dinos, ranging from vertebrate fossils that have nicknames, to even plant fossils (though I don't really know if they have, but it's still pointless either way). JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I just moved the unsourced Draft:List of non-dinosaur specimens with nicknames to draftspace, before seeing this. Editor seems at least willing to source it all, but you might want to engage on their talk page, otherwise it's just going to pop back to mainspace in a bit. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

DYKs

I've noticed that in the project page, there's Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology#Did you Knows..., which appearently is kind of pointless since the last one is from 2014, and I'm pretty sure that there are a ton more DYKs in seven years' time. If we were to list all the DYKs that have been done in the paleo project, it would be an endless list, so there's no point on listing them. In my opinion, the list of DYKs should just be removed. What do u guys think? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 13:33, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No harm if we can find a bot to do this... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 13:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Hm, on second thought maybe we could add a collapsible template to include a columned list? That could be an option... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 14:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
There is a bot that can do this: User:JL-Bot/Project content. Plantdrew (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

On Doleorthis

Hello. Could Doleorthis be one of the longest-running hoaxes on Wikipedia? The article has remained unsourced ever since its creation in July 2006. It does not seem to appear in any specialised databases. A Google search for "Doleorthis" only yields 57 hits, and the vast majority of them are either this article on Wikipedia or mirrors of Wikipedia. While it is mentioned in Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale, it is only as part of a caption of a stock picture from Alamy, which is hardly a reliable source in palaeontology. Finally, the sole mention of Doleorthis I've been able to find in the scientific literature is its inclusion in a list in an obscure Chinese paper, with absolutely no information beyond this acknowledgement of its alleged existence. It is particularly striking that 1) no information can be found regarding its taxonomic description, taxon author and so on; and 2) every single one of the three external sources that mention Doleorthis were published after the creation of the Wikipedia article. Surely a real taxon would have appeared in the literature before it appeared on Wikipedia, right?--Leptictidium (mt) 09:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

There are some records of this name on Google Scholar and Google Books, but they all seem to be misspellings of the name Dolerorthis, which is most likely what "Doleorthis" actually is.--46.204.3.39 (talk) 14:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Corrected, thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:41, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Nice catch. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Also: four centimetres is two inches, roughly. ~ cygnis insignis 15:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I've instated conversion templates, which convert units automatically. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:12, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Ambulocetus at FAC

Ambulocetus is about to get archived at FAC for a lack of reviews. Pretty please leave comments?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:29, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Didn't realize this was at FAC somehow! I'll see if I can get a review done over the next few days. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 20:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Can't find supporting cites

I've been combing through the sourcing for Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which is mostly excellent (unsurprising for a featured article), but the sourcing is unclear for this paragraph: 

The middle–late Campanian formations show a greater diversity of dinosaurs than any other single group of rocks. The late Maastrichtian rocks contain the largest members of several major clades: Tyrannosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, and Torosaurus,[1] which suggests food was plentiful immediately prior to the extinction.

The cited source in mid-paragraph does not seem to support either the first sentence or the last. I can't immediately google up sources that do. I can find sources that mention the great diversity of the Judith River and Dinosaur Park formations, but none that specifically mention the middle-late Campanian beds as having the highest diversity of any group of rocks. Nor can I immediately find a source that looks at the great size of the mentioned clades and draws the conclusion that food must have been plentiful. I suspect a synthesis there.

Anyway, it seems like the sourcing for this article could use just a little bit of touching up by someone very familiar with the literature, which I am not. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

  1. ^ Dodson, Peter (1996). The Horned Dinosaurs: A Natural History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 279–281. ISBN 978-0-691-05900-6.
Yeah, the pre-extinction diversity of dinosaurs is a complicated issue and I don't think that article does it justice. A reasonable source for the first sentence may be Fastovsky et al. 2004, but naturally many disagree with their conclusions. I wrote a newer (but less detailed) summary of the extinction over at Dinosaur#Extinction of major groups, which may be a useful reference. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 16:22, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Whether diversity declined in those last 10 million years seems to be a hot topic, and one where I feel out of my depth. Still, that cite is a good starting point. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't think it's that good of a line anyway, I would just remove it entirely. 2004 is too old a source on Dinosaur diversity since enormous numbers of taxa have been described since then. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Species articles, again

Another instance of "minimal fossil species articles vs genus article". I merged three stubs to the extinct snail genus Euthema [17][18][19]. This was taken very badly by Igor Balashov, the author and apparently species describer, and reverted. I'm not inclined to dig my heels in about this particular housekeeping issue (although this reaction doesn't bode well for happy collaboration) and would invite others to have a look at how the material checks out against the merge criteria. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:31, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

First off, if he really is the scientist who described the species, then what he is doing has violated the policy against not writing about things you are involved in. Secondly, there is not nearly enough information for those species to each have their own articles. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Found the policy, it is WP:COI. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think you can call WP:COI on species describers - they have nothing to advertise, it is basically impossible to write a promotional or POV taxon article, and they may be the only subject matter expert in existence so we absolutely want them to contribute. Please be careful about stomping here, we really don't want to antagonize these editors. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Actually, species describers do fall under WP:COI judging from the existence of this page. Also, looking at the snail species articles, there's also a slight problem of the description sections not being written in a reader-friendly style.
I don't mean to be rude, but prehistoric snail species with as little information available as those really shouldn't have their own articles, in keeping with past consensus of this WikiProject. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
The palaeontology COI page has literally not been edited since July 2008, nearly 13 years ago, and only ever had 5 edits between July 28 and July 29 by two editors. Per WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES individual species, including extinct ones are notable. We have many far worse Qbugbot stubs that don't say anything meaningful about the species in question, which at least these articles have, so I think that the articles should be kept if that is what the author wants. It would make the articles much better if we had images of the fossils in question. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:23, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
I also think it is not a big deal to have these species articles. The reason why we have dinosaur articles (and many other extinct vertebrates) at genus-level is that this is the level paleontologists work with. This might be quite different for invertebrates, where species might be the more important unit (I don't know about snails). It has nothing to do with relevance in any case (all species are relevant). And regarding the COI: It is great (and much needed) if scientists contribute. If we take this COI guideline too strictly then this would rule out any expert contribution, which is not what we want. With these snail articles discussed here, the author cannot possibly introduce any sort of point of view, so I don't see any problem here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm positive it's just a COI since Balashov hasn't created any articles for the species he didn't describe, which is inconsistent with his passionate argument that each species needs its own article for biodiversity or something. I'd advise him to focus his efforts on the genus article as, in this specific instance of a specialist topic, it'd be more beneficial for casual and expert readers alike if all the information is compiled into one page   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  22:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Focusing on the genus article might be preferable, although with snails I'm still not sure. For fossil invertebrates, species-level articles might in fact make more sense, but in any case, it is always hard to tell people what they should write. From experience, I just fear we will scare the author away, and won't see any more such snail articles for the future from him. With experts that occasionally contribute to Wikipedia, we need to be a bit more careful if we want them to stay. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
@Dunkleosteus77:If you are positive there is COI then report it, but withdrawing an accusation against a living (apparently identifiable) person might be better advice. ~ cygnis insignis 07:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't know much about biostratigraphy, but I gather that taxa that are index fossils are often species rather than genera. And gastropods and bivalves fossilize more readily than other animals and are thus more likely to be index fossils. I think species that are index fossils may well warrant a separate article from the genus if the species article is well-developed. However, Wikipedia doesn't have many well-developed articles in Category:Index fossils, and only a small fraction of fossil gastropods are index fossils. Plantdrew (talk) 00:42, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
For context, these are land snails that have been found in amber. Prior to the large number coming out of the Burmese amber within the last decade (including these ones), the fossil record of land snails was notoriously poor and almost blank. These are the furthest away from index fossils imaginable. I could see Hindeodus parvus getting an article, given that it's the defining index fossil of the Permo-Triassic boundary. I've been meaning to give the conodont article a proper overhaul at some point but I haven't really got a textbook on hand to describe their morphology. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@Elmidae: @SilverTiger12: @Lithopsian: First of all, what you're doing here is not merging, but deletion that bypass the procedure, as all specific information was deleted. Every species is notable, which is obvious from general notability guidelines, from WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES and from scientific standards. So what you're doing here, your consensus on this topic, is clearly against the general rules and purposes of Wikipedia, as well as against scientific reasonableness. It is clearly indicated in WP:SNG that "WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards", but this is exactly what you're doing here when saying that there are different rules for fossil species than that for extant species. As an expert-taxonomist that works both with extant and fossil species I can say that such practice is very harmful for purposes of Wikipedia and lacks any scientific meaning.--Igor Balashov (talk) 04:34, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
I agree that when merging, all information need to be kept, as deletion of clearly relevant content is surely undesirable. The more difficult question is whether we should provide this information at species level or at genus level. Looking at Burmese amber snail articles in Google Scholar (and I think the same applies to most invertebrates in general), they usually refer to the species and not the genus. This is quite different from, e.g., dinosaurs, where genera are the terminal taxa (and species are almost always controversial). So I don't see a good reason why we should treat extinct snails (and other inverts) differently than we do treat extant ones. We should reflect the usage in the literature (i.e., having the articles at species level), and this might also make it easier to write those articles (because such genus articles tend to end up as lists of many species, with lots of species-specific information but without much content that applies to all of them). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Articles may be merged if authors prefer so or in groups "where genera are the terminal taxa" as you saying, but making this as a rule is clearly wrong and harmful. In my opinion, it only makes sense with monotypic genera, genera with only one species, but even there it would be correct to name the article after the species, not after the genus, as species are the main units in biology. For example correct title for article Burmanopetalum should be "Burmanopetalum inexpectatum" and I don't even think that this is a matter of opinion, but clearly an erroneous approach.--Igor Balashov (talk) 08:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@Igor Balashov: we do have clear rules that say how to deal with the title of articles on monotypic taxa, both for plants and for animals (see WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA, for example). What the units are in biology has nothing to do with what the article title should be, which is based on the idea that uninomial genus names are more likely to be known than binomials, i.e. an interpretation of WP:AT. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
We don't have a rule saying that all paleontology articles should be at genus level. You can find our guideline on this here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology#Which articles should be created. It lists some good points on why it can be preferable to keep at genus level; e.g., a genus article could collect all information first until there is enough content for individual species articles. I agree that we should let the author decide in principle (at least when we are outside fossil vertebrates), but this does only work when there is a single author to start with, so guidelines such as these are needed as well. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
For now, I restored the original articles to bring back the deleted content, which I think we all agree should be kept. The discussion whether these articles should be merged completely (including all the content) to the genus article can continue, of course, if folks feel the need. This would not be about relevance of these species (which is undisputed), but purely an organizational question. Maybe a few additional bits could be added to those articles, to better justify these very short stand-alone articles? For example, the etymology is of the species names always very important for Wikipedia. Thanks, --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
To weigh in here as one of the few invertebrate paleontology and paleobotany writers active at the moment, I feel that the snails should be treated at the genus title. While some authors will use the full binomals for extinct taxa, others will use the genus, and it shouldnt be effecting the core concept of WP:Paleos policy for maintaing the articles at the genus level. Despite how a joural article discusses the taxa, the unquie differences between taxa are still limited to a small number of physical features, and possibly to geoogic distribution, there is RARELY enough to write a non-stub article for each species that isnt going to result in essentially carbon compies between the genus and species.--Kevmin § 16:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I would like to see examples of where something like accepted species do not have enough distinction in their description for discussion in a separate article. ~ cygnis insignis 16:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I will provide the examples I provided last time this discussion came up. Fordilla, Palaeovespa and Parastylotermes. The species descriptions are NOT enough to create a stand alone article that doest HEAVLY restate information from either the Genus description or the other species descriptions. With the Euthema snail articles in question the ONLY distinct information is the shell morphological differences and the two amber deposits. The do not meet the criteria of having enough unique information to stand alone.--Kevmin § 16:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Do you think we should enforce this as a rule, or should we keep it as an recommendation but let the author decide? I do think that we could create nice stand-alone articles, and even GAs, based on these Euthema species, if we want. For example, the description section could be much longer; then there is etymology; specifics about the preservation of the holotype; information on locality and history of research; and information from the discussion part of the paper. When species of a genus come from separate localities, we would also like to know about the respective paleoenvironment, including contemporaneous fauna, and stratigraphy. All the species-specific context would really blow up any genus article, if that article is perfectly developed. So I think there is enough to write about, in principle. But until they get to a certain length, they could maybe be treated within the genus article, following Wikipedia:Summary style and we only open a stand-alone article after the species section reaches a certain length. But then again, I am still not sure why we should have different rules from those for living taxa. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:11, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I disagree, I do not think there is enough species unique information to generate a start article, let alone GA articles that aren't little more then clones of each other, with slight differences in the species description sections. Even those sections are going to be essentially the same information on all 8 article, since to define each they have to reference the other species descriptions. This is why the genus level articles are done, to avoid that exact problem of Information cloning across myriad articles. The paleobiology of these species is not well known, and the paleoenvironment is the SAME for half the species and half the species. So again we have information cloning. If the general paleoenvironmental section is overwhelming the article, it shouldn't, there should be a short section with links to Burmese amber which covers both Burmese and Hkamti. All of the sections you are listing are the nearly the same across the respective topics. The taxa were all described in the same ~3 articles, within 2 years of each other, the source locations for the two are essentially the same. The etymologies for each should never exceed a sentence or two at the most, as there isnt anything to cover in the type descriptions etymologies other then binomial =source word or word combination. Your "IF" seems to be colored on your experience with sexy vertebrate fossils which, as has already been noted, are typically taxa that are monotypic, they are very different from invertebrate and botanical taxa, where differences often boil down do secondary leaf vein density, or fore-wing vein curvature and junctions.--Kevmin § 18:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
We don't even split to species level for a lot of sexy vertebrates, like Triceratops or Iguanodon. It's only when each species has a significant amount of material specific to only that species, like Mammuthus or Homo   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:34, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Good points you have, it seems I was a bit too quick with that suggestion. Looking again, I think I would agree that, at least in this case, there is really not much info that one of these species articles can provide but the genus article should not provide. If such species articles can only be completely redundant with the well-developed genus article, their status as stand-alone articles might indeed be dubious. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
@Dunk: Yeah, although in vertebrates, we do it for different reasons (genera are treated as terminal taxa). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Species should definitely be covered in their extinct genus articles. I doubt that some species of snails are so different from each other as to deserve separate articles, considering that we don't do this (as far as I know) for way more complex animals such as dinosaurs. I find Kevmin's statements regarding information clonning and specially "The species descriptions are NOT enough to create a stand alone article that doest HEAVLY restate information from either the Genus description or the other species descriptions." very accurate and correct, since separate species articles would only repeat a lot of information about the genus. This in fact already happens in some other non-species articles. I'll give examples from my only expertise area, eurypterids. In articles about families (biological units which no one would question their need for an article, unless they are monotypic) with few genera such as Hughmilleriidae, the information is basically reused from the articles of its two genera. I also don't see why extinct invertebrates should be treated differently from extinct vertebrates. The differences between invertebrate species are usually very few, compared to complex vertebrates. In some of the eurypterid GAs that we have with various species, such as Pterygotus, Erettopterus, Parahughmilleria and notably Adelophthalmus, many species are fragmentary (it would not make sense to create articles for the well-known species and not for the fragmentary ones as it would cause an imbalance and many fragmentary species for sure don't have enough information as to have an article) or differ slightly in characteristics. And regarding sections about paleoecology or paleobiology sections, articles on invertebrates tend to have very little potential for these, and separating the species into several articles would only make these sections even shorter in both the species and the genus articles (the best example is Unionopterus, with sections with a fair amount of information except in the paleoecology section, which is ridiciously small). Most eurypterid articles won't even ever have paleobiology sections as this type of information is only known from exceptionally preserved single specimens that happen to preserve some organs or body systems, and this is rare on the whole Eurypterida order.
We must also think about the precedent that separating these species articles can create. If we keep the articles on the 3 species of Euthema, doesn't it mean that the other 5 of the genus should also have their own article? And what would we cover in the genus article? A short description with characteristics shared by all species? That can perfectly fit on a classification section (or in a description that also includes all characteristics of all species). Also, what if someone decides to extend this practice outside this genus? I doubt that hundreds of species of extinct land snails are relevant enough as to have their own articles, and we for sure don't need them. I think that limiting the species of a extinct genus to the latter's article should indeed be a rule. Also, while the opinion of the describers of the species is of course important, we should not make exceptions to our common practices just because it is the describers the one asking, with all due to them and their work of course. Super Ψ Dro 18:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I also think it would be a slippery slope, and we would potentially end up with hundreds of almost identical stub articles that will never be developed further. Our current guidelines at least give some semblance of a workable standard (only split if a genus article becomes too large, but don't delete any info about individual species when merging). We could perhaps have a vote about it or something just to confirm it again and so we have a mandate to follow through with it. And our many high quality articles about multispecific eurypterid genera give good examples of how this works in practice: they include all relevant info about individual species, yet are still not too long and unwieldy. As for why we should be different from how living species are treated, subspecies are pretty much treated like how we treat species when it comes to articles about living animals here (with few exceptions). FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think it should necessarily be a hard and fast rule, but I agree that there's very little to say about a lot of extinct species within genera that would distinguish them enough to warrant a separate article unless that there is enough to say about them that they warrant being split out into their own separate articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
We could perhaps have a vote about it or something just to confirm it again and so we have a mandate to follow through with it. - I wouldn't mind if there was some appetite for doing this, to firm up the guideline. This probably comes from my focus on new page reviewer work, but I really appreciate it if there are slightly stronger statements to go by for basic housekeeping tasks than the current formulation on the project site. This is less an issue of wanting to impose my stern judgement on new articles, than of being able to point editors to a somewhat solid guideline. Can't kick off another replicate of this discussion every time :/ --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps you should consult with professional paleotaxonomists, as your discussion is clearly lacking basic understanding of the subject, though I would be surprised to see many of them actively contributing here with such issues. Your approach to go with genus-level as a rule is clearly wrong, including mentioned cases with Triceratops and Iguanodon, which leads to further misunderstanding of paleobiology by the readers of Wikipedia. Though it's enough wasting time for me, this is clearly counterproductive when expert should spent so much time to explain why his contribution was correct and it's still doesn't work and leads to such large discussions, better to put my efforts elsewhere, will try not to bother you with other articles here.--Igor Balashov (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
There are several Wikipedia editors who are actual researchers too, though. And no one is saying your contributions of info aren't welcome, the discussion is more about how to organise it (not sure what you mean with Triceratops and Iguanodon, their species are covered in the genus articles too). In essence, the info itself will remain unchanged whether we place it in genus or species level articles, it will just be easier for readers to find the info and get an overview. Again, see great eurypterid articles such as Pterygotus or Jaekelopterus for examples. FunkMonk (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
If you want to know my opinion, as an invertebrate zoologist I don't think that articles Pterygotus and Jaekelopterus are great and I would not choose them as "good" or "featured", though I can agree that lots of effort was put into them.--Igor Balashov (talk) 19:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Alright, you are very welcome to point out issues with these articles on their talk pages, which would be helpful to both writers and readers. And again, feel free to add any info to articles, none of it should ever be deleted. If some of the articles you created were downright deleted without their info being restored elsewhere, those actions were wrong and should not have happened. FunkMonk (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Simply imagine if article Panthera would be written in the same way as Pterygotus and there would be no articles for the species. And no, there is no difference because they are fossil invertebrates, these are the same units. --Igor Balashov (talk) 20:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
From my point of view, the most convincing argument for a single article for Euthema and species was the fact that, if we would develop that genus article to the full degree, it would be completely redundant with the species articles. Hence, the idea is to apply Wikipedia:Summary style – creating the species articles only once the genus article becomes too large. This does not apply to Panthera, since the species articles are already long enough. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:42, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I agree with that, articles like the ones Dunkleosteus said above, Mammuthus and Homo, have a lot of info, both at the genus and species levels, so therefore creating separate articles for species is fine. But with other articles, for example Carcharodontosaurus or Cimoliopterus, I don't think there's as much info about their respective species as the species of Mammuthus or Homo to warrant separate articles. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 21:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, the issue is again both size, as well as available info. We obviously know a lot more about living species than we do most prehistoric ones, therefore the different cut-off point for what taxon level we cover. Exceptions such as mammoth species have a lot of available info about each of them. Pterygotus species, not so much. FunkMonk (talk) 22:05, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Igor, if you think you can write some 140,000 bytes of information on those snail species (that approximately the size of the Lion article, a single species of Panthera), go ahead. But forgive me for highly doubting that such a thing is possible, for, as a paleontologist-in-training myself, I know that scientists know and can only know far less about even the most well-preserved prehistoric species than even the most obscure extant species, at least until someone figures out how to see into the past.
Additionally, I would also be up for an official vote on the topic of prehistoric-genera-not-species article to have a more firm rule on the subject. Good editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
If I were writing it, I wouldn't write separate articles for each species because I don't think there's enough information for it to be worthwhile. But Wikipedia is not paper and there are clearly people here who feel that separate articles for each species are warranted, as well as the previously-mentioned fact that valid taxa are regarded as inherently notable. So I think we should err on the side of allowing the species articles. It's not how I would do it but I don't want to stop people from doing it either. Ornithopsis (talk) 01:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure that WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES contradicts merging species articles, though. It says they shouldn't be deleted, which no one is proposing, but it could be argued that it gives leeway for the kind of policy we're talking about here (the info is kept at the genus level). FunkMonk (talk) 10:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Igor has described Super Dromaeosaurus's and Ichthyovenator's Eurypterid articles as "not great". Their criticisms are not specific, but I want to emphasise that wikipedia is not aimed at providing jargon-filled technical descriptions. Ultimately we are interested in presenting a thorough summary of information that is accessible to laymen. If people want dry, jargon filled technical descriptions then they can go and read the relevant research papers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
It's general scientific approach that biodiversity should be viewed with species as basic units, while genera are artificial classification units and taking them as basic units (as in Pterygotus) makes no sense. It's nothing to do with shortness, each species should be described in separate article and then you can write a genus paper with summary. If you failing to understand this very basic thing - then I'm sorry for you, you're definitely not the right people to judge what and how should be done in writing encyclopedic information on paleobiology and I don't know why I'm wasting my time with you. I'm out of here, it's my last post here.--Igor Balashov (talk) 06:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Fine then, but just remember that an encyclopedia is something that everyone should understand, we're not wrting scientific papers here, what we're writing are long summaries of info. And it doesn't mean that most of us aren't paleontologists we can't rewrite and sum pieces info to make articles, this just seems that what you're looking for is something "perfect", something that you'll never see here or anywhere else, because no one and nothing is "perfect". You can try doing it yourself though, since you're complaining a bit too much... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 07:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
What Igor ignores is viewership statistics. Articles on obscure invertebrate species are likely to only average a handful of views per year at most. If the same information can be presented in a place where more viewers are likely to see it, then it is objectively superior. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I've just found out that Igor has written autobiographies of himself in both the Ukrainian uk and Russian ru Wikipedias. I think that what has to be taken from this is at least part of Igor's presence on Wikipedia is to promote himself and his work. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, even if this isn't COI, we can say that definitely is... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 16:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
It's a good example. The only "value added" in the individual species articles seems to be 1-2 sentences on species morphology, a sentence on fossil localities, and a list of specific refs. Sections Overview and Taxonomy are are similar to identical across all articles. These species would probably be better off in a nice wide table in the genus article. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
If anyone wants to add a fact on one of those species they would be required to code an otherwise empty column, or would that be lumped as 'notes' in a smaller font or addendum. ~ cygnis insignis 16:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
You would set up the table with the expected columns for all species - image, authority, morphology, locality, notes. This is neither novel nor a hardship. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:19, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
  • So now that the dust seems to have settled, should we have a sort of vote to determine if we should enforce the current guideline more consequently? So that species are covered at the genus level unless the genus article becomes too long, and then they can be split off? And therefore, that any short species article can be merged into the genus article on sight? FunkMonk (talk) 14:25, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Precambrian body plans

Precambrian body plans is a pretty synthy article that I think should probably be redirected somewhere, maybe Ediacaran biota? Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:43, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Both are pretty long. I wonder how much of it is just repetition of the same into in two places? FunkMonk (talk) 14:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Emily Willoughby paleoartist AFD

I noticed the Emily Willoughby page is now up for deletion. If you're into the paleoart scene, I figure you might have an opinion about her notability as a paleoartist: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Emily_Willoughby. 78.82.214.190 (talk) 18:04, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Free photos of Natural History Museum specimens

I just noticed that the Natural History Museum in London has a huge gallery of specimen photos which are freely CC licenced, with many very important specimens represented. It'll be impossible for any one person to upload all these to Commons, so I'm just trying to selectively upload what I can use, but I thought it was good to notify the project. Here is for example a search for dinosauria[20] and pterosauria[21]. I'm sure there are photos of all other major groups, including extant ones. Note some of them have incorrect or outdated labels, such as this "Iguanodon" which has long since been considered a Hypsilophodon:[22] FunkMonk (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thanks for the hint. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:43, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Cephalozygoptera rebuttal paper

Could someone with access to Nel & Zhengs (2021) Cephalozygoptera rebuttal add an entry to the general research list on 2021 in insect paleontology, or pass a copy on to me via email, so I can add it? thanks!--Kevmin § 18:12, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

You can probably add an entry based on the provided abstract. As for getting access to the paper, few people here have an interest in Paleoentomology, do WP:RX is probably your best bet. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:55, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

some articles on species

There is a merge discussion at Dromornis which concerns a matter raised here several times before. I'm raising this again in the hope that someone might demonstrate how this merge would work, although admitting I have complicated things by cobbling together the content from existing contributions and stuff I was able to access: sections and subsections for each species, all species discussed and compared in a conventional structure, the proposal above to enter present and future information on each species in a table on the genus article? ~ cygnis insignis 22:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

P. S. One of this project's good article reviewer and creators has stated "Considering each species is known from fragmentary remains, there will not be enough literature to justify splitting all the way to species level." I'm not very confident in this project's quality control. This frequently expressed idea resembles blanket denial and know-nothingism. ~ cygnis insignis 22:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

do you have an actual argument against what I said? Yes fragments can have their own articles, like Homo luzonensis, but you have yet to demonstrate you can justify separation of every species of Dromornis   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  22:41, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I would not make a statement I could not support. I don't think it necessary to support that with references at this page of all places, but will do so if asked by another. Neither do I wish to to embarrass you, again, despite the adversarial approach to my contributions, because I pretty sure that you do so as a sort of good faith support of your fellow reviewers. Please accept I believe this has used to remove notable content and discourage any one who doesn't agree with the extreme application of a faux policy on this subproject. Providing evidence for that would get messy. ~ cygnis insignis 23:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
I apologise for the tone of my response, I have read and enjoyed this user's articles and they strike me as sincere. Again, sorry. ~ cygnis insignis 01:17, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Example one. The article Bullockornis was fine, perhaps promotable to FA with some effort. New evidence and studies supported a treatment as Dromornis planei, the article must now be a redirect and I was breaking an established policy by expanding on the content there: I admit to doing so knowing that was the view of contributors here. ~ cygnis insignis 00:02, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
I do not like the idea of species tables, at least in articles that are not intended to be stubs. It is much better that species are discussed in prose and given appropriate context. What exact prosaic form that takes will depend on the history of the genus. On one hand you have something like Mosasaurus, where the history of various species is complex and intertwined. On the other hand you have Psittacosaurus where there's not as much to talk about (not with respect to history at least). Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:50, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Reticularia

Hi. A lot of Paleozoic life-related articles currently link to the disambiguation page Reticularia. I think they all mean this one, but that genus is not mentioned at the disambiguation page as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure how to disambiguate these links. Can someone look into this? Lennart97 (talk) 12:22, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I guess it's worth another shot, as the links are still there: would anyone like to look into this? Thanks in advance :) Lennart97 (talk) 08:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
I believe the only reasonable match is the brachiopod genus Reticularia Hall, 1858, which contains at least the species R. laevis and R. imbricata [23]. However, I am seeing some sources refer to these species under Spirifer and I'm not sure what the deal is currently. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:14, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Article title input requested

An editor has requested for Early European modern humans to be moved to Upper Palaeolithic Europe. Since you had some involvement with Early European modern humans, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Note that the page was already moved, however the discussion has been reopened as the result of a move review. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:01, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Selected Publications in Biography Articles

Are there any accepted criteria for what articles to include in a list of "selected publications" in a biography of a researcher? I ask this because TasnemAli90 has added a comprehensive list of work to the biography of Hesham Sallam, including unpublished work such as poster presentations, and I am concerned that this makes the article a little bit unwieldy. Ornithopsis (talk) 03:29, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Since it's "selected", not comprehensive, I'd say only the most important publications should be included -- those that tend to establish notability, and to show the breadth and character of the subject's work. Posters strike me as immediate non-starters. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Note that the contributor, according to their user page, works at the same university as Sallam, which may stray into WP:COI. 49.144.197.30 (talk) 12:58, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The fact that some users add way too many publications to biographies of notable scholars does not mean that it is a widely approved practice. Encyclopedia articles should never resemble résumés or curriculum vitae. Some people edit scientist articles with the same level of adoration that people edit Pokémon Fandom pages. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Please check some recent IP edits. It looks like vandalism—please confirm. Is any of it feasible? What is going on? Is it part of a long term abuser's efforts? Has this been reported before? Johnuniq (talk) 07:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: It is indeed a vandalism LTA with a pretty consistent modus operandi. They've been doing this since October, see User_talk:Drmies/Archive_132#Another_LTA. I tried to get an edit filter going at Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Geological_infobox_vandalism but it hasn't gotten any response. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
In the Drmies archive you mentioned a previous range block. Was that for this LTA? If so, please record the range here or point me to the discussion so I can work it out. Is this the right page to record activity (or is there another more suitable wikiproject)? I would prefer a wikiproject rather than user talk so the history can be more easily followed. I just blocked 2600:1700:AAD0:3180::/64 for six months. 96.5.17.180 has not been active since 18 May 2021 so I did not block. Ping me here if a fresh outbreak or I miss anything (otherwise, just wait for me to notice). Johnuniq (talk) 09:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The range that was blocked was 2600:1700:4FE8:5040:0:0:0:0/64 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). The range has been blocked three times, but the first two blocks have nothing to do with this LTA as far as I can tell but the range was blocked for six months on the 5th of May by LuK3 following edits by the LTA, but that was several months after I made the post to Drmies talk page. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:10, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

OK, but what about my other question re if this is the best place to record activity? Johnuniq (talk) 10:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: I am the only user who regularly patrols the articles that the user tends to vandalise, so this is probably the best place. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

From information I've seen, these are the problematic IPs:

I have a list of the 54 articles the above have edited (after removing some off-topic articles). I'm proposing to put that list in a subpage, for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Monitor ("Articles to be monitored" would be clearer but brevity is useful and I like something that would not excite a troubled person too much—we don't want to make it a challenge). That page would contain a link based on the page name, say Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Monitor. Clicking that link would show edits in the last 30 days that affect those articles. That provides a method to detect outbreaks. There are potentially thousands of articles but I'm hoping that monitoring a smaller number (which can be increased as problems are found) would suffice. Any more IPs? Thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 09:53, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq:, the IP has been recently active at 104.60.66.101 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Blocked 6 months. Johnuniq (talk) 23:34, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: Please see the following. I'm hoping you will monitor the "related changes" link.

Let me know when new IPs are found. Johnuniq (talk) 07:09, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Note of discussion at Wikiproject Mammals

Members may be interest in commenting on a current discussion about the time frame to be used for including extinct species on lists of mammals by location. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:22, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Binagadi rhino

Could someone have a look at Binagadi rhino and try to figure out what is going on there? It is not even clear whether it is supposed to be in Rhinoceros or Dicerorhinus, and it is not listed in either genus article, which I find hard to credit for a fossil described in the 60s. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, since it's from Soviet Azerbaijan and was described in obscure Russian sources, it doesn't surprise me it hasn't gotten wider evaluation. The 1955 description is here:[24] FunkMonk (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Okay, that's as Rhinoceros. Do you see when/if it was moved to Dicerorhinus (as might be the current state [25])? Currently I'm just trying to figure out whether this is fundamentally sound enough as a species to mark as reviewed, and what genus to put in the box - the finer fix-up I'll leave to proper palaeo folk. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, that's more than I've been able to figure out... Looking at recent mentions on Google scholar, some sources put "Rhinoceros" in quotation marks... FunkMonk (talk) 15:59, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
The combination Rhinoceros binagadensis is much more widely used, and appears more recently than Dicerorhinus binagadensis (the most prominent use of which is the random photo from the Italian exhibit). Reliable sources are using Rhinoceros binagadensis so I would go with it for the article. I wonder if the exhibit curator decided to go with Dicerorhinus as the "fossil" genus of use, rather then based on actual literature.--Kevmin § 19:57, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
It seems to be an extremely obscure taxon that has barely been mentioned in the recent literature, not helped by the fact that binagadensis is also used for horse and deer species and subspecies, and only appears to be confined to the type skeleton. The timing and lack of finds elsewhere makes me suspect that it is in fact one of the two Late Pleistocene species of Stephanorhinus, but theres nothing in the literature to support the assertion. The genus Rhinoceros was once used as a wastebasket taxon to hold many extinct rhinoceros species that probably aren't closely related to the type members of the genus, which appears to be the case here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Whatever the taxonomy ends up actually being, the size chart needs to go, as it would fail the paleoart review process as it currently is.--Kevmin § 20:25, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks guys. Removed size chart, marked as reviewed for now. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Redirects to Palaeoloxodon species

Just had the following dropped on my talk page by Artemesiagentile who's a bit new here and could probably use some help.

Thank you for helping me get into more proper way of managing outdated redirects. I however, have noticed that many palaeoloxodon species has still a working redirects with its past connection with the Elephas genus despite having a newly assigned subtribe (see doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.02.003). It is confusing for new readers to differentiate a less familiar species belonging in the Elephas genus with the charismatic Palaeoloxodon. I may want to request you to help me manage these redirects to avoid future reader confusion. Thank you very much!

I'm going to take a look if I have time. But I knew the regulars here will probably be able to sort this faster than I will. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 17:33, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Adding a little bit here my initial thought is that if Elephas namadicus was the originally proposed taxon, but the accepted one is Palaeoloxodon namadicus then this is a reasonable Template:R from former name. I'll also go ahead and ping FunkMonk who is still currently active.
Artemesiagentile I guess my question is why you think the existence of the redirects will cause confusion or hinder people who are attempting to find something. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
I just don't see what the issue here is. The redirects are for historic (and in some literature contemporary) names that somebody might reasonably look up. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Update, this is just actually a mistake on my part after reading recent articles still citing E. namadicus instead of P. namadicus. Especially, it is still being published by a government entity (National Museum of the Philippines). The NMP also cited E. namadicus alongside another possible Palaeoloxodon sp. This in turn along with a separate entry (Both P. namadicus and E. namadicus are included) in a 1973 paper made me this conclusion. I am sorry for this confusion of mine. Thank you all for your time! Artemesiagentile (talk) 18:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
No problem. The fact that a few people still use Elephas for Palaeoloxodon species is confusing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
It's fine, it never hurts to ask if you're confused about something, and happy editing. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 18:23, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, it is a quite plausible scenario that someone might have read an older source about a given taxon where a different binomial is used for it, search for it here, and then get taken to the correct destination. That's what redirects are for. FunkMonk (talk) 21:41, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Rafatazmia

The Rafatazmia article needs serious work; it is presently a mishmash of claims and counterclaims. I see from Google Scholar that at least part of the community is taking this taxon seriously, but I'm in a poor position to give due weight to competing claims. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:52, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that article needs some work. It hasn't even got individual sections--it's just got an extremely lengthy lead. Borophagus (talk) 15:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The 10 most-viewed, worst-quality articles according to this Wikiproject

  • 272 Whippomorpha 6,178 199 Stub Low
  • 286 Walking with Beasts 5,793 186 Stub Low
  • 313 Walking with... 5,218 168 Stub Low
  • 320 South Island giant moa 5,143 165 Stub Low
  • 338 Walking with Monsters 4,828 155 Stub Low
  • 349 Falcatus 4,698 151 Stub Low
  • 412 Sinemys 4,014 129 Stub Low
  • 462 Odobenidae 3,492 112 Stub Low
  • 464 Gigantosaurus 3,479 112 Stub Low
  • 466 Neoaves 3,471 111 Stub Mid

Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Popular pages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coin945 (talk • contribs)

If you look at the pageviews toolforge, Sinemys had a strange, broad viewspike between the 22nd of May and the 6th of June, but otherwise averages low single digits, while Falcatus had a massive (~3,500) viewspike on the 5th of May, but otherwise averages low double digits. This methodology used here seems likely to pick up articles that have had view spikes, but that do not consistently get high views. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:01, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
How come Whippomorpha was categorized as a stub? It's easily one of the longer palaeontology articles I've seen. Borophagus (talk) 15:46, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
It's status probably just wasn't updated after someone had expanded it. It has to be done manually, and I'm not sure many really pay attention to it, I don't, for one. FunkMonk (talk) 15:52, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Theropod growth rates

Quick look at this new article please? Just wondering whether this is already covered and/or should be merged somewhere. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:42, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

The user in question appears to be part of Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Connecticut/Physiological Ecology of Animals (Spring 2021) and the creation of the article may be to do with their coursework. I agree thst the article is probably unnecessary, but I would wait until the course is complete before doing anything about it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

An obvious solution would be to merge with Theropoda, where a respective section is still missing. But yes, it can wait. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, could be a nice section in Theropoda, perhaps under life history or such, once they're done with it. FunkMonk (talk) 22:11, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Alright, I'll keep an eye on it - course finishes end of the month. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:16, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Does someone want to merge this now? Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:28, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Editor has been inactive for 2+ months, I would support whoever wants to go ahead and merge. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:41, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Do we cite news articles?

This was an issue brought up on Dragon Man (archaic human) by FormalDude (talk · contribs) and Abductive (talk · contribs). Especially with more recent high quality articles, the project has maintained that news articles are to be avoided especially when they are attempting to summarize a peer-reviewed journal article, because it's better to go directly to the person who said it first rather than the guy who's regurgitating what they understood from the person who said it first. A news article cannot offer any novel insights and in this point of view merely serves the same purpose as Wikipedia. When they report interviews, scientists can make egregious claims in news articles that otherwise wouldn't pass peer-review   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:30, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree overall, but this should be on a case-by-case basis rather than a matter of policy (e.g., sometimes news articles are fine for size estimates). Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:35, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
I would disagree. It's not like the size estimate just popped out of thin air. The only good instances I can think of is discovery of specimens which often aren't discussed in the journal articles   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:36, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
I can respect the concern in using news article sources on palaeontology pages. The main reason I added these sources is because the references to the journal using doi.org do not appear to be accessible, and a journalist's interpretation of a study is better than a dead-link to a study. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 15:38, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • We can surely use news articles for uncontroversial, circumstantial info and statements from describers, as has been done in many FAs so far (see for example Lythronax). But if news sources say something that contradicts the published papers, we shouldn't give them undue weight. FunkMonk (talk) 15:41, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I think we should not cite news articles in addition to published papers just because the latter are inaccessible. Maybe the weblinks section is a better option here. We should only cite those sources that were actually used to write the article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
The sources were used to write the article, sorry if I was unclear. They contain the same basic informtion as the journal, but they are more readily accessible to readers. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 15:48, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Then we have to go for the highest quality sources, which are the journal papers. News articles don't belong there in my opinion, except for when we need to cite uncontroversial stuff not provided in the papers. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:52, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
@FormalDude: If the reason is lay media is easier to understand, we can add the parameter |lay-url=[news link]   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:36, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd also disagree about size estimates, as size estimates originally coming from news articles are usually quite rough approximations. I think that news sources also are suboptimal for covering taxonomy (the whole Triceratops fiasco), description, classification, biomechanics, behavior, and paleoenvironment, though I'd agree that they could be used to flesh out information on the discovery of a specimen/site, as this is usually non-controversial information not easily misunderstood by news sources. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 15:49, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • The lay media often makes mistakes in reporting scientific news, most commonly by uncritically and breathlessly repeating the hype fed to them by the people at the university PR department. But many news stories contain interviews with scientists who are willing to go on the record criticizing the initial science, and this constitutes analysis in reliable secondary sources. In fact, without these sources, Wikipedia would be as big a joke as the initial hype, an embarrassment. Abductive (reasoning) 15:52, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
As I said before, you can't make accurate taxonomic opinions on a specimen you haven't studied; this is widely acknowledged even among the scientists interviewed. Likewise, adding such contrary opinions only available on news interviews before any study has been done is a case of WP:TOOSOON. I am 100% certain someone's going to publish a contrary response in the near future, but until then, such views shouldn't be added just yet. It's like how we had to wait until the analysis of the Sahelanthropus femur was published in 2020 before adding anything about it even though it'd been brought up decades before   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:36, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
You can exert WP:OWNERSHIP all you want (actually, you can't), but the sources acknowledge that there are problems with the primary (descriptive) sources. Perhaps if you looked at WP:MEDRS, you'd see that primary scientific sources are not trusted there. Wikipedia's whole purpose is to report the consensus of secondary sources, not slavishly hew to some invented doctrine. Abductive (reasoning) 17:16, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Exactly how do interview quotes based on no first-hand examination of the material constitute reliable secondary sources? Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Because these are experts, who are questioning things like the provenance and the dating, and can read and understand the details in the published description. You are confusing primary (descriptive) science, which is the lowest form of science, with analysis. Abductive (reasoning) 17:39, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
A proper secondary source would evaluate the original paper's claims formally through examination of relevant evidence. There is zero indication that any of this took place for interview soundbites. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:24, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
As I said before, peer-reviewed anything is considered a secondary source. Those interviews with no peer-reviews are primary sources, and should be excluded entirely   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
What you are saying is profoundly wrong, and not supported by Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Abductive (reasoning) 17:39, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
By that definition, self-published journal articles are also considered reputable sources whose viewpoints deserve inclusion. Also, none of the news refs on Dragon Man are used to make any contrary claims. They're just supporting what the journal articles have already said and are thus completely unnecessary, and should be removed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:37, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
News articles are not high-quality sources, and certainly of lower quality than peer-reviewed papers. If they contain novel claims (as you imply), they are primary sources by definition as well if we cite those claims. If news articles can or should be cited depends on the specific example. Which example are we discussing, could you provide a diff-link? The two contended two news cited in Dragon Man (archaic human) do not seem to match your description; one does not contain an interview, and the other I cannot access (which does not make it any better than journal articles behind paywalls in this aspect). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:02, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
On Dragon Man, the news refs are supporting info which they got from the journals, which is why I wanted to delete them in the first place   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:32, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
That is a separate question. I think that you should cease your wikilawyering and flagrant disregard of Wikipedia policy before any more editors take notice. Abductive (reasoning) 19:47, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
As you speak of Wikipedia policies, please take notice of Wikipedia:No personal attacks, thank you. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:53, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
@Jens Lallensack: Here is the diff link that added the two citations in question. The debate is drifting away from pertinence; the original argument was wheather or not they were reliable sources which I beleive we've established that in this instence they are reliable since they are using the exact same information as the journals. I think they should be included and are not redundant because the journals are not accessible via the current citation that uses dio.org, whereas the news article sources have a live URL. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
No, the links are working (the doi's are still broken but that should be fixed soon, in the meantime we'll stick with the cell.com link)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Okay, but that's not a reason to remove the relevant and reliable news article sources. What are you arguing here? It's not like this is a case of excessive citations. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 21:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Because summarising news articles like these (disregarding interesting quotes that may appear in some) are usually of worse quality than the respective Wikipedia article. That is how we have always handled it (for good reason); you won't find many news articles supporting paper citations in any of our FAs, for example. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:44, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't think these sources are of worse quality than the WP article. In this circumstance they contribute an equaivalent value as the journal citations. If the consensus is to never use them at all, that's fine, but it dosn't sound like that is the case. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 22:26, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
the problem is these science news articles are tertiary sources like Wikipedia is   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:13, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Exactly. You have been accused of profoundly misinterpreting the policy but in fact you're profoundly correct :o). It's complex. Peer-reviewed articles largely consist of secondary source content. News articles are in principle tertiary but can contain primary source content, certainly in relation to an interpreting Wikipedian editor who may be liable to committing OR... On a case to case basis, it must be decided with common sense whether to include information from press sources. When a new taxon has been named, it is prudent to wait until a naming article can be cited. However, whether a working DOI link to it exists should not be a decisive criterion.--MWAK (talk) 10:32, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
Okay makes sense! Happy to leave those sources out. I appreciate the explanation. —FORMALDUDE (talk) 22:16, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I think we need more biology editors involved on the Dragon man/Homo longi talk page, it is being swamped by people who have only read sensationalist, simplified news articles, but with little understanding of how taxonomy works. We can't accept a consensus based solely on ignorance. FunkMonk (talk) 15:02, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Aside from "Dragon man" being quite frankly a rubbish name, the fact that so many people don't understand that "Denisovan" does not have a formal scientific name is mind-boggling. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
And I think it has been repeated at least ten times now, yet the same editors repeat the same misinformed arguments over and over... FunkMonk (talk) 15:12, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think I have much to add to this extensive discussion that hasn't been said, but I'll add another voice against the use of news articles as either individual sources (notoriously unreliable) or alongside the paper (completely redundant to a far superior source) for topics of science. They're alright for background information on stuff like the discovery of specimens, which sometimes isn't included in papers. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 23:32, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

PhyloCode

Discussion about whether PhyloCode definitions should be used on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#PhyloCode. Relevant for paleontology as in some taxa (e.g. turtles) PhyloCode definitions are widely used for stem-group taxa. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Homo longi

I found the no consensus resolution to the 'Dragon Man (archaic human)' versus Homo longi title discussion to be deeply unsatisfactory, especially given the majority opinion (16 vs 10) being to move the article and the misunderstanding of both title policy and taxonomy by many of the opposing voters, especially the eventual refusal to respond to the points made against them. I even raised the issue on the closing administrator's talk page. I find the idea forwarded by the most prominent of the opposers, that we should wait for several years before trying to move the article again, to be troubling given that it's essentially keeping the article under an informal nickname, and erroneously reinforcing it as a 'common name', which it isn't. Though WP:MOVED suggests waiting a few months, this is apparently not a hard rule so a new discussion could be opened soon – as I think this move discussion turned a bit ridiculous I would be in favor of opening a new one more or less immediately, but with more focus on article title policy, if other editors are interested. Because wider input is always good I've also notified and asked on the other relevant WikiProjects WP:ARCHEO and WP:ANTHRO. I believe a second discussion would be beneficial for both sides of the argument, given that strong policy-based arguments, rather than taxonomy- and science-based ones, could serve to either strengthen the case for 'Dragon Man' or make the move to Homo longi happen.

I think Homo longi is correct just not from a taxonomic or scientific standpoint, but also based on Wikipedia policy. There is no clear WP:COMMONNAME for the species, given that a majority of sources use both 'Dragon Man' and Homo longi, but all sources put 'Dragon Man' in quotes, meaning that it's an informal nickname and thus inappropriate as a title. Per WP:QUALIFIER, less ambiguous titles not in need of disambiguation are preferred even if other names are more common (favoring Homo longi over 'Dragon Man (archaic human)'). WP:CRITERIA states that article titles should be precise (again w.o. disambiguation if possible), concise (favoring the shorter Homo longi) and consistent (favoring Homo longi as the other human species are under their scientific names). Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Blockhouse is possibly a sockpuppeteer[26], so if a new move request is begun in the future, it will possibly go less turbulently. FunkMonk (talk) 11:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
They even removed the sockpuppet investigation notice form their talk page[27], which is highly suspect. FunkMonk (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Would it be inapproriate to bring up Blockhouse at WP:ANI? Considering not only the possibility of sockpuppeting but also the repeated refusal to reply in discussions (while still actively bringing up new points in separate comments)? I made a comment on their talk page which was promptly removed without response and pasted on my own talk page with the heading 'Here, I will give this back to you, I do not want it'. It's quite funny but also does not strike me as 'proper' conduct and makes it difficult to carry a proper discussion. Taking a look through the page history, it's not the first time they've removed criticism. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Considering the likelihood of him getting banned as a sockpuppet anyway, it'll probably be a wasted effort. FunkMonk (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, gotcha. Holding off on that then. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Is "Dragon man" indeed the common name of the species, or is it just the nickname of the specimen? Most sources seem to indicate the latter ([28], [29], [30]). There are some which use the name as a synonym of the species ([31]), but at least in the latter source (National Geographic), the name is applied to both the species and the specimen in different parts of the article. We have to remember that news articles are made for the general public, and are not meant to be as precise and correct as we aim to be in Wikipedia. While I do understand that "Dragon man" is simply the translation of "Homo longi", do we have any statement of one of the involved scientists that explicitly applies "Dragon man" to the species? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:11, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
A strong argument and certainly something to bring up in a second move discussion. This is of course made more complicated by the specimen in question at this time being the only specimen of Homo longi. Ichthyovenator (talk) 12:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Certainly if we find another identical skull in Denisova Cave, that skull won't be called the "Dragon Man"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:10, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree with you entirely, just thought that it is also worthwile to keep in mind that this single specimen currently is all that is recognized of the species. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I also think that the argument of WP:TOOSOON is not relevant to the question of the article title. If WP:TOOSOON is a concern ("we have to wait to see if this proposed species is going to be accepted"), than it does not seem to make a difference if the article reads "Homo longi is a species" or "Dragon Man is a species". Both would be TOOSOON in that case. If TOOSOON is a concern, the article would need to be about the specimen, not the species, which would require rewriting, and removal of the taxonbox. I don't think we have consensus to do that, and the article was always about the species. Homo longi is the official name of the species, so I do not see how WP:TOOSOON could possibly apply here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • And it seems that we just became too agitated in that discussion. People managed to drag us down to their own level, where they beat us. Next time, we should maybe just ignore them as soon as we see that arguments do not come through, and direct our responses to the general audience instead. I also think that a little break would help before starting that discussion again. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree it's best to wait a little bit before taking this up again. Soon the taxon will be out of the media again, and the talk page will not attract the same amount of people who only read popsci articles. FunkMonk (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Found this discussion from the note at WikiProject Anthropology. A short waiting period seems appropriate to me, perhaps a few weeks or one month from the close. Certainly it seems a discussion more closely focused on WP article name policies would be beneficial, especially with input from a broader specialized community (I hope some from WikiProject Archeology join in as well), because what discussion occurred before seemed more on the subject of validation of an archaeological find than of an article name. If the distinct article is appropriate (and I think it is, it clearly meets WP:GNG at this point), then settling the matter of its title without having to tangentially argue for GNG is far more appropriate. (As an aside, being made aware of this discussion via a note left on a WikiProject Talk page is explicitly not canvassing, per WP:CANVASSING. See [32] and [33] for the context of this parenthetical.) --Pinchme123 (talk) 16:21, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree that a short waiting period is probably for the best, I may have been too worked up over the last discussion. Thank you. If and when a second move discussion gets underway, would notifying of that discussion on WikiProject talk pages at that point be considered canvassing? Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm far from an expert, but to my mind no, it wouldn't be canvassing. Especially if the WikiProject talk page notification posts are plain announcements of the move discussion that don't contain reasoning. Even something as simple as this AfD notification post would suffice and couldn't possibly be construed as soliciting opinions for one side or the other. --Pinchme123 (talk) 07:50, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Something interesting I noticed when closing discussion is that the main recommendation of WP:FAUNA is that we should prefer the common name of a species over its binomial name. Some articles on hominins follow this (Human not Homo sapiens, Neanderthal not Homo neanderthalensis), but the vast majority do not (e.g. Homo floresiensis not the Hobbit), and the same seems to go for paleontology articles (e.g. Tyrannosaurus not T-Rex). I can see the logic here: most fossil species don't have other names, so it's more consistent not to use them; and many apparent 'common names' are more like nicknames, sometimes just for an individual specimen. But maybe it would help to explicitly write this convention down somewhere, to address the apparent contradiction with WP:FAUNA/WP:COMMONNAME in cases like this. – Joe (talk) 09:07, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I think an issue here is in what exactly constitutes a common name. 'Neanderthal' is extremely well-established as the common name of Homo neanderthalensis, as are the names of some other recently extinct prehistoric creatures such as Megalodon and the Woolly mammoth. I agree that written guidelines and conventions would be preferrable here. Perhaps the distinction is in actual scholarly usage? Scholarly sources use the common names 'Neanderthal', 'Megalodon', 'Woolly mammoth' and 'human', but do not tend to use 'T-Rex' in favor of Tyrannosaurus rex or 'Hobbit' in favor of Homo floresiensis. Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:56, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Speaking as a non-paleontologist and only occasional contributor to paleontology articles: This seems right to me. Common practice in the scholarly community should be the touchstone. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 13:56, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Agreed, we need to distinguish between actual common names and gimmicks invented by the media. For example, we would not call Araripesuchus DogCroc or Sarcosuchus SuperCroc because these names were unilaterally invented by National Geographic and have found no acceptance in the literature. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 14:46, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Actually, I'd probably use a cool name like DogCroc ... just not in serious writing, including Wikipedia.  :). --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:01, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
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