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Archives for this talk page are messed up

The latest archive of this talk page, #25, ends in 2014. The most recent threads are now being added to archive 11 (on top of threads from 2006). Other threads since 2014 are in archives 7, 8, 9 and 10 (also on top of earlier material). I'm assuming the counter for the current archive was mistakenly changed from 25 to 7 in 2014. That should be pretty easy to fix. But sorting out all the newer threads from archives 7 to 11 is more work than I'm interested in taking on right now. Anybody else want to tackle it? Plantdrew (talk) 22:24, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I can go through and copy-paste all the misplaced text into a new archive 26. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 00:16, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Plantdrew I moved all the mis-archives and changed the Archive bot (tranferred from MiszaBot to ClueBot) IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 00:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks for taking care of that. Plantdrew (talk) 01:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality on Ornithoscelida

Since Ornithoscelida has now been the subject of more than one paper, and two camps may or may not be forming, perhaps we would have to be neutral on the issue. Issue 1: on the dinosaur page, Lusotitan suggested to list neither Ornithoscelida or Saurischia in the taxobox.[1] Issue 2: Perhaps Saurischia should be hidden from the taxoboxes of theropods. Personally, I have no strong feelings on either. FunkMonk (talk) 02:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I think Saurischia remains as the most likely and most accepted idea. Ornithoescelida is weak, and Phytodinosauria is weaker, but Saurischia is *slightly* more probably according to Langer et al 2017. Since Ornithoescelida has really only been proposed and supported by Baron et al, it is still a minority phylogeny. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 02:51, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Sauropod Navigation Templates

I've recently been making these. I've already made Template:Diplodocoidea, but I wanted to make sure that this one for Sauropoda is okay. Did I miss anything on it? --Slate Weasel (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd strongly advise working your way up to sauropoda. One for Macronaria (excluding Titanosauria) would have a reasonable number of taxa, and then one can be made for Sauropoda (excluding Macronaria and Diplodocoidea). Having a number of these for each clade it a good way of organizing and listing all taxa (a number of titanosaurs weren't mentioned in Titanosaur but have been added to the template). IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 23:03, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
One was made for Macronaria, so I'll go and create this one. --Slate Weasel (talk) 15:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
All sauropods should be in a navigation template now! --Slate Weasel (talk) 17:50, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Category Changes

Somebody has been running around unilaterally changing lots of established dinosaur categories again. I don't have the time to undo all of them or request a block. Anybody? Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:27, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Has anyone tried simply talking to them? The changes are fairly silly ("prehistoric tetanurans"?), but it seems entirely possible that no malicious intent is involved. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:07, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes sure, see [2]. For sure there is no malicious intent behind it, and the user stopped creating these sorts of categories after this kind request. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:21, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, many times, and about other categories as well. See discussion at the paleo project, we should maybe keep it centralsied there:[3] FunkMonk (talk) 20:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I have no doubt that their edits are well intentioned; the majority are indeed useful. But overridingly, their edits are very poorly thought out. They do a lot of work refining categories in an incredibly inefficient step-wise manner. This edit is fairly typical; the categories "Animals described in 1881" and "Arachnids described in the 19th century" are refined to "Arthropods described in 1881" and "Spiders described in the 19th century". Refining the year category from Animals to Arthropods is certainly an improvement. But why stop there? If they're going to do that, they might as well make year categories for spiders. And from what I've seen, it's quite likely that they will come along in six months and refine Arthropods to Arachnids, and six months after that refine Arachnids to Spiders. Plantdrew (talk) 20:36, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Victoria Arbour article nominated for deletion

This AfD may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Also of interest, George Olshevsky's article was recently deleted after this discussion. [4] Can't say I'm quite as familiar with the name as with Arbour (who I certainly hope we can find grounds to keep), but it would've been nice to know. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 23:55, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry about that — I try to share AfD notices, but sometimes they slip through the cracks. XOR'easter (talk) 21:25, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I'll leave a note here that the nomination ended in the article being kept over a lack of consensus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:45, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Recruit new editors to your project?

Happy new year! I've been building a tool to help WikiProjects identify and recruit new editors to join and contribute, and collaborated with some WikiProject organizers to make it better. We also wrote a Signpost article to introduce it to the entire Wikipedia community.

Right now, we are ready to make it available to more WikiProjects that need it, and I’d like to introduce it to your project! If you are interested in trying out our tool, feel free to sign up. Bobo.03 (talk) 19:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Your offer definitely sounds beneficial to me, although we should probably wait for other members of the project to chime in. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Sounds interesting to me too. Abyssal (talk) 01:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 05:11, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, our goal is to help WikiProjects. Any member can put his/her name on my talk page to sign up for your project. I will later send a list of new editors who are recommended to your project to that member's user talk page, so you can talk to/invite them to your project. Bobo.03 (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Related, but Lusotitan and I have done some off-wiki recuiting ourselves. Welcome @Austroposeidon, Franoys, Megalotitan, Onychodus, and Jonagold2000:. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 00:33, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Cool. Where you guys been talent hunting? Abyssal (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
People we know from deviantart or discord servers. Most have at least some level of amateur knowledge. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 00:51, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I remember we discussed this before, but considering the newly created Almas (dinosaur) I thought we should clarify this discussion of disambiguating the (dinosaur) taxa. Contra Lythronaxargestes, WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA recommends to use the species name for disambiguating monotypic taxa, instead of bracketing the terms. I personally find this to be a much better looking strategy, although it doesn't work perfectly if taxa aren't monotypic (eg Gastonia (dinosaur)). I think the last discussion we had about this died without reaching an agreement, and it would be best to clarify before continuing. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 18:00, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I think the dinosaur project used to have its own conventions in this regard, and that's what has been mostly followed. But since many of the earlier members aren't really that active anymore, I currently don't really feel very strongly about it. There was a similar discussion at the tree of life project, maybe some of the comments there can be useful:[5] FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I would support keeping things as in Almas (dinosaur), because it can be used in all situations, whereas the binomial as the title creates inconsistency (non-monotypic taxa). Additionally, it might be relevant that the conventions for living taxa might not be best carried over, since it's far more common there to give individual species their own articles. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
See point 3 at WP:ATDAB: parenthetical disambiguation is only to be used "when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title". This is ultimately the reason why we use the species name for monospecific genera. A WikiProject can't agree to ignore WP:AT. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:35, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
So it does appear that the natural disambiguation form is what we are supposed to do, and I agree and think that the binomial should be used here. Lusotitan Lythronaxargestes seem to think otherwise, so I'm not sure if we should overrule the articles immediately or not ... IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 23:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Can't we just move it to the binomial with Almas (dinosaur) as a redirect? Abyssal (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
If the guidelines ask for the binomial as the name I'll agree to use that, although I still don't like it. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 02:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA states: "but no lower than the monotypic genus".--MWAK (talk) 09:10, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
@MWAK: read on – "The exception is when a monotypic genus name needs to be disambiguated."
@Lusotitan: as it happens, I don't like the policy either, but it seems to be well established that parenthetical disambiguation should be used only when there's no other "natural" disambiguation, and here the binomial is just that. Both WP:AT and WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA are quite clear. So Abyssal is right: the article should be moved to the binomial and the parenthetical name used as a redirect. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Only problem now is that moving these articles to the species level makes our dino-project convention of only having articles for genera a bit watered down. Wouldn't people wonder why for example Tyrannosaurus isn't at Tyrannosaurus rex? Or begin creating new articles for individual species of genera that are polytypic? Also, how do we write the intro? If we spell out the binomial first, we conflict with all other monotypic dinosaur genus articles. FunkMonk (talk) 15:24, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
I think that we write the articles in the same way, and simply use the binomial as the article title to avoid conflict with other articles, so we naturally disambiguate them. This is a thing in published scientific papers as well where the genus is used instead of writing out the binomial every time, except in polytypic species. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:59, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
We should round them all up now. IJReid has dealt with some of them, but off the top of my head, Mei (dinosaur) still needs moving; certainly there are more out there. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:26, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Mei (dinosaur) for sure, also probably Saturnalia (genus) and Drinker (dinosaur), Galtonia (archosaur), Siats (dinosaur), Talos (dinosaur), Tawa (dinosaur), and Yi (dinosaur) (although it may be a problem since Yi Qi is a guys name). Gastonia (dinosaur) and Leptorhynchos (dinosaur) and Anthodon (reptile) would be nice, but they have multiple species. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 01:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Oh yeah, we should at least leave polytypic genera alone, as the guideline states. FunkMonk (talk) 02:28, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
WikiProject Dinosaurs tagged articles with parenthetically disambiguated titles can be found with this search Plantdrew (talk) 03:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Given its complicated history through several genera, which never truly got resolved, I feel a Leptorynchos elegans article would be nice anyway, as it happens. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 23:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
One problem with spinning off species articles from genus articles is that every time something new is published about the species in question, both articles will have to be updated, instead of just updating one, focused article... FunkMonk (talk) 00:14, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
That seems like a rather minor inconvenience to me. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, someone has to do the updates, so it's just extra work, multiplied by every species article that is split off. Nothing at all keeps us from covering everything known about each species in the genus article, so what is the point of splitting them off? A case could be made for the two Edmontosaurus species being well-known enough to be split, but few other dinosaur species approach that. And that's where I proposed once that a species article should only be split off when a genus article grows too large, not before. We are not served well with more useless stubs (Leptorhynchos (dinosaur) itself is just a stub!), and thats all we'll get, as the workload/backlog increases. But this is of course up for discussion. FunkMonk (talk) 00:20, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, I feel it'd be awkward if Leptorhynchos (dinosaur) went on at decent length about something that's not the type species and might not even end up staying in the genus while it barely mentions the actual type species. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:32, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
You mean because there is more to write about one of the species? Otherwise I don't see what prevents us from giving the two species equal coverage in the same genus article. In the end, you can't write more than what is actually known about a species, and even if the species was split into another article, it would still need to be covered at the genus article, so the "awkwardness" would remain. Only difference would be that we would now have an extra stub to fill up in addition to the genus article. I don't see what any other gains there would be. If the species is moved to another genus again, we just move the info to that article. FunkMonk (talk) 00:40, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Most of the relevant articles still haven't been moved. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:45, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah I moved all the ones I could, but we just haven't requested for admins to move the rest yet. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 23:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I think some of them can't be moved by "mortal" users, and need formal move requests. Not sure why, maybe when their targets already exist and have a talk page. FunkMonk (talk) 23:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: you need page mover rights in these cases. (You have to swap pages, because you can't delete them, but the process can be automated with a gadget.) Someone with your record of contributions should definitely apply for these rights. In the meantime, if you can supply a list of moves needed, I'll be happy to make them. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:22, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Maybe I have them already? Not sure how to check. FunkMonk (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: actually you do; look at Special:UserRights/FunkMonk where you'll see "Page movers". Go to User:Andy M. Wang/pageswap and follow the instructions. You'll get "Swap" added to the "More" menu. Then when "Move" in this menu doesn't work, you can use "Swap". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, yeah, I was confused because I often get a message that I can't move a page anyway, but I guess this tool will do it... FunkMonk (talk) 20:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Here goes with a list: IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:22, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 Done but I have only carried out a very quick clean up after the moves, so I hope someone will check for double redirects, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:20, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
This one will have to be left as it is, in my view. If there were more species, then Yi qi would need to be at Yi qi (dinosaur), but this is best left as as redirect. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:20, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to change guidelines on the naming of articles about monotypic taxa

There is a proposal to change the guidelines on the naming of articles about monotypic taxa at the bottom of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Monotypic genera. Please join in the discussion there. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Possible hoax articles

Can editors from this Project please have a look at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Furileusaurus and help evaulate the contributions of the user who created these pages? Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I am from the project...... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:03, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Please could someone from this Project likewise evaluate the contributions of Hallothere! (talk · contribs) who is working extensively on dinosaur pages. He created Draft:Tyrannoraptora, which has not been approved, and went on to create the differently-spelled page Tyranoraptora in article space, which does not appear to be supported by the citations given. – Fayenatic London 12:18, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

The article is mistitled (a possible typo) and flawed, but why is it identified as a hoax? Tyrannoraptora exists as a category and a redirect to Coelurosauria (where it is named in a cladogram), and a couple of hundred hits on Google. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:13, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
What lavatera says is correct, Tyrannoraptora is a valid group. But I think at this point there is no need for it as a separate article anyways, the non-tyrannoraptoran coelurosaurs are few and far between (nevermind sometimes nonexistant). IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:23, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
I've had my eye on him for a while, Hallothere! has made contributions adding completely made-up clades to cladograms and taxoboxes (example). These edits have seemed to be outnumbered by good faith edits, although many of these are still poor changes. As for an article on Tyrannoraptora, I don't see any real reason why not, if it had been made properly; if we give every dinosaur species tiny-stub articles as well as such articles for similarly minor clades (ex. Rhabdodontomorpha), I don't see why not here. That said, it's certainly not urgently needed either. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 15:39, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
I've looked through (and corrected) some of his edits. The one at Zhuchengtyrannus looks OK (tidying up after someone else's edit). However I'm not sure that earlier edit (removing a taxon from a cladogram) was justified, and another edit added some photographs labelled as a name which the edit comment on another edit says is not the same taxon. Someone familiar with the field might like to take a look. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Prosauropoda

Obsolete taxa among prehistoric reptiles (and therefore in dinosaurs) there are many: Thecodontia, Rhamphorhynchoidea, Avicephala or Euryapsida. The latter all have a separate article, which is not the case with Prosauropoda. However, it belonged to the around twenty groups of dinosaurs systematically mentioned in the works of the last century (see 2000s):

  • Saurischia
    • Sauropodomorpha
      • Prosauropoda
      • Sauropoda
        • Diplodocoidea
        • Macronaria
          • Titanosauria
    • Theropoda
      • Ceratosauria
      • Tetanurae
        • Carnosauria
        • Coelurosauria
          • Maniraptora
  • Ornithischia
    • Thyreophora
      • Stegosauria
      • Ankylosauria
    • Ornithopoda
      • Hypsilophodontidae
      • Iguanodontia
        • Hadrosauroidea
    • Marginocephalia
      • Pachycephalosauria
      • Ceratopsia

This simplified (and obsolete) classification was very common in popular literature, and prosauropods still had a place of choice. Would not it deserve to become a separate article again (because this taxon has a long history)? In any case, the current situation is not suitable: it is a redirection of Plateosauridae (thus excluding Riojasaurus, Anchisaurus or Massospondylus). --Ellicrum (talk) 15:00, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the main reason Prosauropoda is a redirect is because it is still a valid term, but Plateosauridae is its senior synonym. Both Prosauropoda and Plateosauridae include the same taxa at this point, and both could be the valid name if they had priority. Plateosauridae is just the older of the two making it the preferred name for that group. Perhaps an expansion of the article to discuss Prosauropoda would be good, but I don't think we need a fully separate article. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I wonder whether it corresponds to a more inclusive group, though? FunkMonk (talk) 15:27, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
It also seemed to me that the prosauropods corresponded to absolutely all primitive sauropodomorphs (and therefore, well beyond the Plateosauridae). But I did not know that Prosauropoda became synonymous with this family (and so somehow still valid). --Ellicrum (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
In the 90s, Sereno defined it based off Plateosaurus (everything closer to it than Saltasaurus), so it is a valid name, but that doesn't really equate the umbrella term usage that you'd have seen further back. While I do think there could be some merit in an article title "Prosauropod", that would be confusing given Prosauropoda would still link to Plateosauridae. I think expansion of the subject, currently briefly touched on in the Sauropodomorpha article, perhaps in a new history section in addition to just the classification section, would be a better approach. Speaking of, the Ornithopoda article also needs to go into the historical usage of term and explore what the term "hypsilophodont" means - I'll put it high up on my priority list. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

New "Dinosaurs ‘too successful for their own good" study

New "Dinosaurs ‘too successful for their own good" study from Dr Chris Venditti of the University of Reading:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42945820

My initial sense of this is that the statistical analysis might be interesting, but that the take-home message / journalists' summary ("towards the end of their reign, their progress slowed, as they became adapted to almost every habitat on Earth") is probably oversimplified and wrong. Your thoughts?

-- 189.60.63.116 (talk) 03:28, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

This might be useful in a solitary mention or two on the Dinosaur article but i don't see where else we could reference this broad article. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 04:38, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
There are a gazillion theories on dinsaur extinction, I'm not sure we need to list them all upon publication, until they get some wider recognition. FunkMonk (talk) 10:18, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Can I send invitations to new members for your project?

Hi, I have been working on recommending new members for your project for a while, and have sent some lists to IJReid who helped invite those recommended editors. I wonder if you mind me sending invitations directly to save time and efforts of yours? Thank you! Bobo.03 (talk) 19:45, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't mind if you send invitations directly Bobo.03. I forgot to fill out the surveys and stuff will do that now. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 19:51, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
@IJReid: Great, thank you! I can continue sending the list to your own page as well if you'd like to see and send them:) I will generate the list at most once a week. Bobo.03 (talk) 19:59, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Grallator

According to the Grallator article, there a a heck of a lot of synonyms of Grallator. These, like Dilophosauripus all should redirect to Grallator. However, we have articles for Abelichnus, Eubrontes, and Jialingpus all of which are listed as synonyms of Grallator! Shouldn't these all redirect to Grallator or is there something I don't know about? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 13:34, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

This paper treats Eubrontes as distinct and it was published this year. I don't think we should act hastily about this. Abyssal (talk) 13:41, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
I think the problem is that ichnotaxonomy is a mess, with every author having their own opinion. FunkMonk (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Exactly. I will remove the list, as it is not covered by the provided sources (and I don't know of one that would support this), and does not reflect any of the main opinions currently held in the field anyway. There are also a lot of redirects of ichnotaxa listed as "synonyms" to the article Grallator (e.g., Kayentapus), they would also need to be deleted or get their own article. Establishing synonyms does currently not really work in dinosaur ichnology anyways; there are a lot of taxa which cannot really be separated from others but remain in use, for example as "regional ichnotaxa". --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:59, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Resurrecting Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Dinosaur collaboration

Any interest in resurrecting this? Maybe to get some broader articles worked on, like origin of birds or something? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:44, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

There was some discussion about Brachiosaurus on my talk page.[6] FunkMonk (talk) 05:58, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
I would be very interesting in resurrecting it, as this collaboration was one of the things that once persuaded me to join this project. Maybe a new try with the old format, where we vote for the next-important article? Brachiosaurus would be a great candidate. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:12, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok folks, consider the collaboration officially resurrected. There is no time limit - once an article reaches GA then the next one is selected. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:58, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

So do we just keep Brachiosaurus, which was the current collaboration when the initiative had been inactive, or do we do a new round of nominations? Maybe the first option isn't too bad, as Brachiosaurus seems to be quite close already and there is renewed interest in working on it again, and seeing that article succeeding would perhaps be more motivating than seeing it failing? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Ok, two things happen. Everyone is welcome to work on or offer advice on Brachiosaurus as a first thing. Second thing is to think about another article that you'd like to work on at a later date once Brachiosaurus passes GA, as the one with the top votes becomes the next official collaboration. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:48, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Alright, got it! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Pinging LittleJerry and IJReid. We could maybe start a discussion on the article's talk page to list what we think the article needs? FunkMonk (talk) 10:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Section on improvement started:[7] Also pinging MWAK, in case he has anything to add... FunkMonk (talk) 14:45, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Any recommendations for sources I could use? LittleJerry (talk) 16:20, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I am already collecting, and as I happen to have most of the relevant sources as pdf, I think it might be a good idea that I upload the stuff and send a download link to each collaboration participant via wiki mail? I try to get that done by tomorrow! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:29, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
As far as I know, the latest description is this, which is freely available:[8], and if you use Scihub or something like that, the original description is here:[9] But others probably know of some more good sources. Sounds good with download, Jens! FunkMonk (talk) 16:33, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Lovely article

Is there a Hall of Fame for cute dinohoaxes? I found a splendid nominee:

Darn, I have a feeling Beaudesertoceratops might be related to the blocked hoaxer Ozarcusmapesae[10]... FunkMonk (talk) 13:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I hope not. Someone who knows the field better than I do should check his edit record in Simple. If it is riddled with hoaxes more subtle and less pleasant than this one, then it's a sad day but duty must be done. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zunityrannus He has also tried to restore this nomen dubium here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zunityrannus&action=history I directly quote the Tyrannosauroidea article: "An as-yet-undescribed and unnamed tyrannosauroid (informally named "Zunityrannus")." Nothing whatsoever from the Paleobiodb. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 17:58, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Image Criteria

The "What Images Should Be Used" section lists JP screenshots as an exception to the grass rule, but this is obviously not okay, per copyright and movies do not have special "avoid review for free tickets" unless used for pop culture, which again is still restricted by copyright. Should I remove this? (This is a legitimate concern, not an April Fools prank.) --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 17:43, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I think that is an old remnant from when it was common to use fair use images in dinosaur articles, due to a lack of free images, which is obviously not a concern today. So I agree it could just be removed. FunkMonk (talk) 19:00, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I'll go ahead and remove it, in addition to the Walking With... exceptions on the general paleoart review. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 22:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
  • There is another criterion which was added later than the others which may be a bit iffy "Image seems heavily inspired by another piece of media or directly copied from it. Example: A image of Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor depicting them as they appear in Jurassic Park being used in the articles on the genera, or an illustration of Deinonychus being a direct trace of another illustration of Deinonychus." First, what is wrong with being inspired by other media? Second, yes, if an image is a direct copyright violation, it should be deleted from Commons, but that is an independent process. FunkMonk (talk) 14:01, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
I think that it refers to something like this. Suppose that User:Example draws a Pentaceratops using the exact same color scheme (or a few minor alterations) and in a similar pose to this one. I'm pretty sure that would violate copyright somehow (although the color doesn't apply to Anchiornis, Microraptor, Sinosauropteryx prima, Psittacosaurus sp., Archaeopteryx, etc.). --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:50, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Copyright law is very complex, so I hesitate to comment, but based on my experiences of making images of prehistoric plants, my understanding is that copying another drawing is not acceptable. You can draw an image yourself from the verbal description in a source, and use any illustration there as a guide, e.g. whether there should be feathers or not. Coping the exact arrangement of feathers and their colour, if only shown in the image, would be a step too far. It's fine to "be inspired by" but not to "be inspired to copy by". But this is a very complex issue, and best referred to experts if there's a doubt. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:25, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps we should just make it clear that copying the work of others is not accepted. The whole "inspired" thing is too vague and open to interpretation. FunkMonk (talk) 12:51, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Australian Spinosaurid

A new user has created Australian Spinosaurid for an unnamed species. I'm not sure it merits its own article. Described here, discussed here, routine pop science coverage here. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:29, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

needs a little fixing up but looks notable to me   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  03:24, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
We usually don't have articles on unnamed or invalid species. I think the content should better be incorporated within the Spinosauridae article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Heh, we actually do have a lot of that kind of article[11], but I think we should restrict what we make articles for, perhaps to animals that have been mentioned in the scientific literature or some such. FunkMonk (talk) 06:37, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Hm … but, then, when does a single fossil discovery qualify to get its own article? Having received an informal name (and the australian spinosaurid doesn't even have one, we should use the specimen number as lemma here) seems like a poor criterion to me (as these names are quite meaningless). What is the current consensus here, are fossil finds generally relevant when they cannot be attributed to an existing genus? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:52, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I would say no, and I also think we should not "steal the thunder" of future formal namings of dinosaurs, but some of these articles are quite old, so we would probably need a wide discussion before knowing what to do. Perhaps we could have a cut off point and say we don't create more of such articles after a certain date. FunkMonk (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
We could, in the future, have sections about unassigned material and yet unnamed species in the article of the respective higher-ranked taxon. As that would be the logical place to discuss the stuff. Once established, we could simply redirect those articles to these sections, keeping only the most significant ones. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Seems like a good compromise, though to be complete these sections would of course need to mention a lot of other material than what we have individual articles for. FunkMonk (talk) 08:18, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Agree with placing material on undescribed taxa in the body of the next higher ranked article Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:22, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Dinosaurs Newsletter.

Hi, I would like to help make a newsletter for WikiProjects Dinosaurs, can anyone help? PW102281 (talk) 15:10, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Heh, I don't even know what that is, any links? FunkMonk (talk) 15:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Problematic taxonomy

Gspsaurus and Saraikimasoom and the associated taxonomy templates have been causing taxobox errors for some time. One problem has been that a family, Gspsauridae, was placed in another family, Titanosauridae. I "corrected" this to place Gspsauridae in Titanosauroidea, but it would be good if someone here could look at these articles, since my interest is in problematic taxoboxes, not dinosaurs. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, we don't even have to worry about that. Gspsauridae is not a real clade. Nor is Saraikimasoominae. And all the taxa described by Malkani in the 2015 paper are invalid nomen manuscriptum so they shouldn't even have taxon boxes. On a very important side note FunkMonk, Laossaurus is the same hoax article creator/copyrighted image uploader as before. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 14:25, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
Ah, good to know that's sorted. I've asked for the corresponding taxonomy templates to be deleted. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:20, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Taxobox at Timurlengia

The taxobox is currently wrecked at Timurlengia because Template:Taxonomy/Timurlengia was deleted with the summary "Mass deletion of pages added by Beaudesertoceratops". I'm reluctant to re-create the taxonomy template, but it is needed, so can someone knowledgeable please fix this. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

There's the same problem at Ignotornis (an ichnogenus); Template:Taxonomy/Ignotornis was deleted with the summary "Mass deletion of pages added by Mylodana". Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Fixed the first one, but I'm not sure what to do about the second one, don't know much about ichnotaxonomy. FunkMonk (talk) 08:46, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: nor me! Bob the Wikipedian seems to have been the "ichno expert", but doesn't seem to be around now. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
I managed to make some kind of fix, but it really could do with an expert look. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Good source of ichnotaxomies Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:04, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
I restored {{Taxonomy/Ignotornidae}} and corrected its parent to {{Taxonomy/Avipedia}} Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:13, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Dinosaurs

Hello everyone, on my user page, I have a dinosaur of the month, if you would like to choose the next dinosaur for my page, click here. PW102281 (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, heres a userbox that I made for stegosaurus lovers!


PW102281 (talk) 21:57, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Taxonomy question

Please could someone knowledgeable about dinosaur taxonomy look at Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 13#Template-protected edit request on 7 May 2018, which asks for the parent taxon of Dinosauria to be changed from Dinosauriformes to Dracohors. I could make the change, but don't know if it is sensible. Please respond there. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:11, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

  • I think the clade is too new and hasn't had enough time to establish itself with wide use in the academic literature, if it ever will. I would hold off for now Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:16, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it's too recent to know how accepted it will be. FunkMonk (talk) 11:34, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Ok, it's now been made clear at Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 13#Template-protected edit request on 7 May 2018 that the edit request needs to have consensus first, and clearly doesn't. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
The clade itself is well-established even if the name has not been. It's just " the least-inclusive clade containing all dinosauriformes closer to Megalosaurus than to Marasuchus", isn't it? This clade (in an unnamed state) has been supported by the scientific literature for years. There's no real controversy behind it like with Ornithoscelida or some of the other clades Cau has made in other parts of the paper. The only thing "too new" about it is the name, which isn't particularly problematic or anything. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 14:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it will probably not be questioned by later researchers, but I don't think there's a rush to implement it in the taxobox system immediately after publication. FunkMonk (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Why not implement it? Like mentioned above, it's near-guaranteed to be accepted and it's more accurate and precise. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:02, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Diceratops

Participants involved in this project may be interested in a discussion at Talk:Diceratops#Hymenoptera. Please comment there to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks, Cnilep (talk) 01:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs merger

There's a discussion about to happen at Talk:List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs about if the list should be merged into South Polar dinosaur. All those with opinions please voice it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

A possible issue is the impact on the completeness of the Lists of dinosaurs by land mass category. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:05, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Palaeontologist peer-review of Baryonyx

The Baryonyx FA was submitted to the relatively new WikiJournal for peer review, some of which have just arrived[12], so I thought it might be interesting to link here, as the comments there have implications for how dinosaur FAs could be written in the future. The review by Christophe Hendrickx is particularly detailed:[13] Perhaps other dinosaur FA writers might consider sending articles there for peer-review in the future too. FunkMonk (talk) 00:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Two comments that stuck out as interesting to me are how he recommended the retitling of the Palaeoecology section to Paleoenvironment, and how he said there absolutely needed to be references for every taxon mentioned in said section, not one singular encompassing one. Are either of these things we should be considering for our articles?
On the topic of the WikiJournal, I found this section of the "Why this journal was created" page quite interesting: [14]; it touches on the unevenness of science-related articles. While I don't think this is of utmost importance so goes the scope of a whole article when it comes to articles just aiming for something like FA, I do think it should be applied to and kept in mind within individual sections. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:15, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Some of the comments would be hard to apply on Wikipedia, such as having references in the intro, which is generally discouraged here. As far as I know, journal abstracts are not supposed to have citations either, but well, I'll just keep that to the WikiJournal version. As for palaeoenvironment, Jens Lallensack actually used that as a title instead in for example the Opisthocoelicaudia and Ceratosaurus articles, so it could at least be listed as an option. I also suspect that Hendrickx (he has a Wikipedia account, Christophe Hendrickx, I wonder if he's still active) wanted the known materia listed under description because he had not seen it was already listed under history? FunkMonk (talk) 01:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
To my knowledge references in the intro is optional but not really discouraged; quoting WP:LEADCITE:
"Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article."
There's some points about why you might chose one or the other, but ultimately it says it comes down to a case-by-case basis, and essentially preference. I personally chose to put them in mine, as I find the practice of excluding them rather nonsensical. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 02:12, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
This is great news, I was already waiting for something like this. Not sure if they would accept another dinosaur article right now, but I'm inclined to try. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:17, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I imagine they might include maximum one dinosaur per issue for diversity, but perhaps Elmidae knows more about the plans and scope. Supposedly the issue is to come out in May, but the reviewer suggestions are so extensive that I'm not sure if I can get it done in time. As for citations in the intro, it may not be discouraged specifically in the guidelines, but it almost always is during FAC reviews. FunkMonk (talk) 12:28, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Anything submitted now is unlikely to make it into the current upcoming issue (planned for first week of June) due to the time it takes to organize reviewers and reviews. But apart from that, I doubt maintaining diversity will become a big problem soon - as of now it's about receiving a sufficient number of good contributions. Also, you can never have too many dinosaurs. So please submit away :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:01, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Nice, in that case, I guess people can select the FA article they've written which they find most solid and up to date for nomination, because these reviews will also improve the Wikipedia version itself. Hendrickx pointed out many sources I had overlooked or which were just too recently published for me to have heard about them, and he has published on spinosaurs himself (and is cited in the article), so it was very lucky he took the review. I don't think there is a danger of flooding the journal with dinosaur articles either, since we're only about 3 active dinosaur FAC writers at any given time. FunkMonk (talk) 16:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for your positive comments on my review guys, appreciate! No, I'm not active on Wikipedia anymore, I now fully dedicate my time to research. And if I had the time, it would be for the French Wikipedia, for which I made some contributions a few years ago. By the way, I've noticed many English mistakes in my review (and one major anatomical one by implying that the braincase is from the postcranium!!), so please don't forget that my mother tongue is French! I would be pleased to review other Wikipedia articles on theropods in the future, although I only know enough on megalosaurids and spinosaurids (and theropod teeth) to do that job. Keep up the good work anyway, I'm pleased to see very thorough articles on dinosaurs (and other fossil vertebrates), like this one on Baryonyx, on Wikipedia. The latter undoubtedly became the primarily source for non-specialists, so that's fantastic. Well-done to all of you!--Christophe Hendrickx (talk) 23:41, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
And many thanks for the great review and encouraging words! I (and some other writers here) am not a native Anglophone either, so I understand your "pain". It will take some time for me to implement all the suggestions, but I hope it can be within the next month or so. FunkMonk (talk) 23:55, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

RfC on changing "Living dinosaur" from a standard article to a disambiguation list page

See: Talk:Living dinosaur if you wish to comment. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Dino glossary

During the Gallimimus GAN FunkMonk and me had a discussion of how to better cover basic dinosaur anatomy, and FunkMonk came up with the great suggestion to have a glossary, similar to the bird glossary which proved to be highly useful for bird descriptions. Such a glossary would include many terms known from outside the field of dinosaurs, but has the advantage that everything can be discussed in the context of dinosaurs. Currently, we often link to medical articles dealing solely with human anatomy, which do often not fit our purpose. I quickly assembled some terms which might be suitable for a glossary here. This would be the maximum approach: Including all important dinosaur terms. I do no longer think that this makes sense, as the field of dinosaurs is very interdisciplinary, each discipline coming with its own terminology (e.g., fossil footprints; bone histology; geology). I would now rather go for something restricted to anatomy, keeping the possibility to have additional glossaries on the other disciplines in the future. An anatomy glossary still would be a huge thing, but can be detailed enough to include everything needed in this regard. Before I put more work on it, I would like to check the general opinion on the matter, and would be happy to hear your thoughts. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I can definitely assist, I think I understand and can explain most or all sauropod vertebral anatomy, which is one of the more confusing subjects. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:17, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Perfect, lets do that. I'm also thinking if we should include anatomical terms of location (e.g., "anterior", "lateral", "ventral", "preaxial", "sagittal"); terms of motion (e.g., "flexion", "pronation"); body divisions (e.g., "autopodium", "postcranium"); and some general terms specific for dinosaurs but not strictly anatomical (e.g., "embryo", which has a different meaning in dinosaurs). Also, should we include soft part anatomy (e.g., all the different muscles), or do we restrict it to a Glossary of dinosaur osteology, dealing with bones only? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Soft tissue would be more difficult because not many maybe any dinosaurs preserve it. If it is relevant in a few cases (some hadrosaurs?) then it could be included. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
If we want to have a reasonably complete compendium, we probably should not have alphabetical entries for every term, but rather introduce most terms in overview entries, similar to what the bird glossary does. For example, we could discuss all the general features of, e.g., the femur, in the entry for that bone, covering all associated terms except for few very important ones (e.g., "forth trochanter") in bold within that entry. Entries would therefore form some sort of mini articles, keeping stuff together that belongs together. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
I think organization into bone anatomy would be good, if the article format can work the same with the specifix section-linking, I can look at the technical aspects. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 21:18, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Can't take credit for the idea (Jens first proposed an article about Dinosaur osteology), only that I knew of a bird project precedent, but in any case, its something we could really need. There is some info on how the bird glossary was started here (under "glossary of bird terms"):[15] FunkMonk (talk) 20:49, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • This is also should be considered to extend to pterosaurs skeletal anatomy and technical terms for wing membranes, membrane layer names pycnofibres etc.Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps give pterosaurs their own glossary? Would also include terms like notarium and "flapling". Anyway, this should perhaps only be done once we have a good precedent in the diosaur glossary. FunkMonk (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Thank you all! I will develop the glossary in my userpage first, covering basic stuff, and then move it to article space so that we can work on it together. I will leave the vertebrae details to you, user:IJReid, and also your technical help will certainly be required (e.g., we will need to create a template similar to that one in the bird glossary). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:29, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Alright I will do a little work tonight and then when I get back Thursday. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 23:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
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