Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Giraffatitan

It looks like the pages for Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan are sort of a mess with respect to each other. I suggest (see also Conway's message on the Brachiosaurus talk page) that we ditch the Giraffatitan page, make it redirect to Brachiosaurus, and discuss the situation in a section of the Brachiosaurus page. Either way, I think we need to standardize the use of B. vs G. brancai. Dinoguy2 18:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I am in agreement as regards ditching Giraffatitan and standardizing B. vs G. brancai, for what it's worth.--Nar'eth 21:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. Many authorities list them seperately, and just as many list them as the same genus. It's a judgement call.--Firsfron 01:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I belive there is insufficent evidence for ditching the article, untill there is consenses in the scientific community the species is still relevant. Enlil Ninlil 01:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but if it is a species then it should be listed on the Brachiosaurus page, just like the other species of Brachiosaurus. Only if it is a seperate genus does it need its own page.--Firsfron 02:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Maybe as a comprimise, we could include B. brancai on the main Brachiosaurus page, mention the Giraffatitan situation briefly in the section discussing individual species, and also keep the Giraffatitan page as a non-taxobox entry for further explaination? Something similar to the current setup for Brontosaurus. Though, come to think of it, this might be going a bit far considering the severe-stub status of the Giraffatitan "article" as it is. We would really lose nothing by making Giraffatitan a redirect, and then if somebody wanted to write more on it at a later date, they could junk the reidrect code and start over (in other words, bud it off like you would for any article).Dinoguy2 02:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, the two genera are usually found to be sister taxa so it is pretty irrelevent which genus is used. Basically it comes down to whether you are a "lumper" or a "splitter". The same is true of actual giraffes, for that matter! So I am ambivalent as long as it is done in a way that makes sense. Sheep81 07:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If it is a species it can still have its own page like the therapsids or has this already been debated and ruled out? Enlil Ninlil 08:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Nope, genus only. See Criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs.Dinoguy2 13:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, after doing a little research on this, especially regarding Carpenter's description of a north american brachiosaur skull, I'm going to revise my position here and say that for now, these two should be treated as separate genera with a mention of possible synonomy on each page. I've already re-written Giraffatitan to partially explain the situation. This would basically mirror the current standing of Microraptor and Cryptovolans. Good?Dinoguy2 13:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I see that the tyrannosaurs have their own page is that a mistake?--Technosphere83 14:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Not unless a specific tyrannosaur species has its own page. Family pages (like Tyrannosauridae), genus pages (like Tyrannosaurus) are ok, but species pages (like Tyrannosaurus rex) are not, unless the genus name is taken.Dinoguy2 14:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused because,

  1. T. (Tarbosaurus) bataar
  2. T. (Daspletosaurus) torosus

Have their own page and are listed as Tyrannosaur species in the tyrannosaur page.But on their own page they are another genus all the sudden.Something is wrong.--Technosphere83 23:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a matter of consensus. More workers currently consider the tyrannosaurid genera Tarbosaurus and Daspletosaurus to be taxonomically valid (that is, not synonyms of Tyrannosaurus) than currently consider Giraffatitan to be distinct, on a genus level, from Brachiosaurus. Sauropods aren't really my specialty, so I'm speaking more to the rationale at work here than to the validity of (or lack thereof) Giraffatitan.--Nar'eth 23:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, now that I think about it, we need a consensus here on the validity of Tarbosaurus and Daspletosaurus. My feeling has always been that they're distinct from Tyrannosaurus, but I admit to being something of a splitter. At the moment, I'm using the 2nd ed. of The Dinosauria (2004) as my taxonomic standard. Holtz recognizes four genera of tyranosaurines: Daspletosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Nanotyrannus. I consider Holtz no slouch with theropods. Hence, I vote (getting further off-topic) that Daspletosaurus and Tarbosaurus not be listed on the Tyrannosaurus page as species or as subgenera, but that their respective genera pages be maintained. --Nar'eth 23:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
LumpingDasplatosaurus torosus and Tarbosaurus bataar as species of Tyrannosaurus would be a mistake at this time. There are several different studies that find that they are not even sister taxa, let alone the same genus. Keep the individual pages and just note that such-and-such scientist considers them to be congeneric with Tyrannosaurus. I feel the same way about Giraffatitan and Brachiosaurus, although far less strongly. Sheep81 00:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Holtz is the leading tyrannosaur guy--I agree we use his genera here. In my experience, only a few workers lump Tarbosaurus, and even fewer lump Daspletosaurus. Maybe a quick mention on Tyrannosaurus species section that these are occasionally included in Tyrannosaurus, but remove them from the species lists. (I'd also forgotton about the discovery of the North American brachiosaur skull, which seems to lend a lot of wight to Giraffatitan as a seperate genus, I think). While we're on lumping/splitting, I think other sources of recent contention should stay split, like Suchomimus and Baryonyx. I'm on the fence about leaving Cryptovolans as a separate page though.Dinoguy2 00:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Mapusaurus roseae

Has anyone seen this species before, its new to me. As I cant find any reference to it as of yet. BBC Enlil Ninlil 01:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yup, kind of old news as it came out weeks ago... I dunno why the news media is just picking it up now. Anyway it is a new carcharodontosaur. Here is the paper... fourth one down the list. You can download the PDF for free. Also notice that right below it is the Antarctopelta paper. Sheep81 02:08, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Elmo12456

This user has been making some questionable edits to the WP dinosaur articles. Although Dinoguy left several vandalism warnings on 12456's talk page, these were good-faith edits that just weren't accurate: it's not actually vandalism, although it is upsetting to see good articles junked up. I've left a friendly note on 12456's page that explains why many of his edits were deleted. I have seen that Dinoguy has tried to fix a lot of the edits, and I've gone through part of the list myself, but there may have been things that haven't been caught yet. The full list of edits can be found here.

There's also a new template that needs to be deleted (because it is neither scientifically named nor useful in any way), and I'm in the process of nominating it for deletion. Please support the nomination. The template can be found here.--Firsfron 01:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I cooled it with the vandalism warnings for a bit, but he either doesn't read his talk page, doean't care, or doesn't understand. I'm beginning to think it's the third, but if this is the case should he really be editing Wikipedia?Dinoguy2 03:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Point taken. A look at his extremely long (83 characters long) signature and ghastly animated gif-filled user page makes me wonder if this isn't a junior high school student.--Firsfron 03:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
And now I've discovered at least some of his edits were copied and pasted from Yahoo.--Firsfron 21:00, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Is there no way to ban this user? He probably means well but is really fouling everything up. I had to completely re-write his recent Streptospondylus article because it did not contain one word of correct information. It seems like all the information in it was inferred based on the similarity of the name to Massospondylus, unless I'm missing something.Dinoguy2 23:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
WP's banning policy can be found at Wikipedia:Banning_policy. I agree that it's difficult to be constantly monitoring this user's contributions. What you describe happening at Streptospondylus presumably also occurred at Riojasuchus (for Riojasaurus).--Firsfron 23:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


OK, I've had enough. We can't keep fixing every article like this. I changed every word in Libycosaurus except the name itself.--Firsfron 03:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Same here, and in fact he's hurting this wikiproject. Filling the redlink taxa with completely made-up information, then having me come along and do a half-assed damage control job on that article, makes it less likely that a serious contributor will fill the same red link with substantial and well-researched information (i'm too fed up to even be bothered making taxoboxes for these things, my latest cleanups have just been one or two liners. i'd not even bother if I didn't hate the idea of blatent falshoods in Wikipedia). I checked up on Wikipedia:Blocking policy, and I think the section "Users who exhaust the community's patience" applies to this situation. If it looks like we have community support (please reply here), I think we should have Elmo blocked.Dinoguy2 23:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Although I haven't been around for a while, I feel I should have a part in what goes on. I don't think we should take banning someone too lightly. Although what he is doing is extremely disruptive to the project & to its members, I doubt his mistakes are created maliciously (or however you spell that word!). He seems to be young, inexperienced & from his writing skills, English may probably be his second language. If this is so, the messages fristfron etc have left on his talk seem very technical, especially the last one. Although his user page may look like the word of some asylum escapee, I think we should allow him some more time to correct his mistakes. Judging on his last few edits, it seems as though he may be trying really hard to fit in. He may also be pasting his information from misinformed sites, leading to him looking like he's putting in wrong information. I think he needs at least a two clearly written, easily understandable reminders of what he's doing wrong & what he should be doing instead. Using basic psycology (or however you spell it), it is easy to see from his user page that he wants attention, but can't express it in a normal way. He's probably enjoying the attention he's recieving from misbehaving, as the unstable wheel always gets the most attention. If we show him attention without him being problematic, then maybe it will show him that being good will still get him attention. Sorry for going on too long, but I think there are other ways to resolve the problem before lynching him too early. Agreed, in the future, banning may become an option, but for now it should be questioned. Spawn Man 23:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC). P.S. Let's not make the blood rushing to our head from all the reverts we must do control the way we handle the situation...
I'm really starting to get the feeling that he's simply making up information or trying to infer information based on the name. I recently re-wrote an article on a prosauropod which he had written was a 2ft long carnivorous relative of Microraptor. The fact that microraptorians are rare and have only been known for a few years makes it seem very unlikely that any site could confuse something like this. He also wrote an article on Streptospondylous as a prosauropod, probably because he figured Streptospondylous sounded like Massospondylous. I had your attitude for a while, but he is just not getting it, no matter how many re-writes or messages he recieves. As I said before, if "He seems to be young, inexperienced & from his writing skills, English may probably be his second language", than he really is not qualified to be working on the english Wikipedia.Dinoguy2 23:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Whatever happened to the ol', "G'day Spawny, we're glad to have you back mate. You're a real gem. A real gem..." I guess those days are over.... Spawn Man 01:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Palaeosaurus

Recently Jayant started this article. It was a good start, but the situation is complicated by several problems: the animal is actually several different animals, one from the Permian and one from the Triassic. One is a phytosaur, one is a sauropodomorph, and one is a possible crocodilian (how'd they ever get confused?!; I mean the sauropodomorph and crocodilians). There's also an alternate spelling, Paleosaurus, a junor synonym (Palaeosauriscus), a nomen nudum, and all of them are nomen dubium. It is clear from Jayant's post that he was having some trouble with the article.

When I saw it was listed as a dinosaur from the Permian, I knew there were going to be problems. Several editors have since edited the article, but it's a mess-- which is the fault of no one here, obviously: the naming is really complex, and clearly a mistake was made during classification. This page lists some of the complications.

I started editing the article, but I realized I'm not up to the task, with what I have for references. Does anyone have a good reference source for this jumble of reptiles? A simple good link would be fine: I looked thru Sheep's links, but didn't see anything on Palaeosaurus. Then again, maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Help appreciated!--Firsfron 04:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I still dont understand how one animal could be so many animals...!! Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 05:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I have two articles that could help you with this, one is a 2000 redescription of Thecodontosaurus from the Journal of Vert Paleo, the other is the 2003 paper where Efraasia was resurrected, in Palaeontology. I can email them to you if you want. Or if you want to go to the library, I can give you the refs... or I guess I can just rewrite it myself. Sheep81 17:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually here are two links you can follow also...
http://dml.cmnh.org/2002Apr/msg00630.html
http://dml.cmnh.org/2002Aug/msg00273.html
Sheep81 17:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, on third thought, since I have just done all this research, I will just redo the article myself, so I hope nobody edits it before me! Sheep81 17:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good.--Firsfron 18:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, it's done. I have a long timeline which is very convoluted. If somebody would like to reformat that in some other way, be my guest.
Shoot me if I ever waste that much time on something so irrelevant again. Sheep81 20:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Looks excellent. I would call neither the animal nor the article "irrelevant", however: I think it's quite telling how easily these discoveries can be messed up by classification errors, or even simple misspelling mistakes, and we're sure to find a few more, too. And the new article looks quite nice. I made one minor adjustment, standardizing the species name of Efraasia diagnostica (so that it matched where you mentioned it earlier in the article). Thanks for the re-write.--Firsfron 02:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I have to say this is really amazing. Putting such disparate and convuluted story together in one place as an easy to follow (well, easy as it can be) article is a major accomplishment!Dinoguy2 03:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Wow.... That was good...!! Who knew that an article i started would end up looking soo cool..:-D ..Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 08:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Yep! Poor Sheep will have a heart attack if he has to untangle another paleontological mess like that, though, so maybe we'll keep the next one to ourselves. ;)--Firsfron 09:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Well I just rewrote Antarctosaurus so maybe I am a glutton for punishment. Sheep81 21:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Bwah! I guess so! I knew we'd find more "fun" genera; I just didn't think it would be:
a)you
b)so soon
Happy editing, --Firsfron 22:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Thanks for the fix on Efraasia. After I read the new Paleosaurus article, I knew I'd have to fix Efraasia. You were quicker on the draw, though.--Firsfron 22:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
No prob. Next up... Megalosaurus! Bwahahahaha--yeah right. Sheep81 09:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Ceratopia vs. Ceratopsia

This issue has gone unresolved since over a year ago. I think it's about time we decided once and for all which to use. My vote is for Ceratopsia' for two reasons. One, it's far more well known/widely used, and most laymen will probably assume Ceratopia is a typo, making any article that uses it seem that much more disreptuable. Two, while the ICZN does not cover superfamilial taxa, it does cover family-level taxa, and Ceratopsinae, Ceratopsidae, and Ceratopsoidea (not to mention Ceratops itself) all have priority. Suddenly switching the spelling past the superfamily level is just not aesthetiaclly pleasing to me. I agree with the ICZN rules. Just because a taxon name is mis-formed from the Latin doesn't mean it should be changed at a later date, and IMHO this principle should apply in general to other (especially well known and historically used) taxa even though the ICZN doesn't govern them.Dinoguy2 00:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Somewhere in WP guidelines, there's something about this. Articles and categories should use the most commonly-used name (ie, 'book' instead of 'tome'), unless that name is definitely incorrect (ie, 'sherbert' vs 'sorbet'). In the case of Ceratopia vs Ceratopsia, a Google test finds Ceratopia with 923 hits, compared to Ceratopsia at 36,800 hits. The main article should be at Ceratopsia, then, with a redirect at Ceratopia, and all articles, to avoid ambiguousness, should refer to Ceratopsia. A note in Ceratopsia can mention the alternate spelling, and the fact that some professionals prefer Ceratopia.--Firsfron 00:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I know of exactly one professional that prefers Ceratopia (Alifanov). This is a non-issue except among amateur nomenclaturists, as far as I can tell. Sheep81 09:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
All righty, I added a note about the alternate spelling in the main article. I leave it to one of you fine gentlemen(?) to deal with Ceratopia. Sheep81 09:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I am male, and I have been assuming that Dinoguy is, too. ;)--Firsfron 20:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I redirected Ceratopia to Ceratopsia.Dinoguy2 19:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Was there anything in Ceratopia that could have been transferred over?--Firsfron 20:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Nothing that could be easily incorporated without totally re-writing it. Most was redundant with Ceratopsia in one way or another. i'll post the complete text of Ceratopia on the Ceratopsia talk page in case anyone sees something they want to use.Dinoguy2 21:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've added in a few sentences of the old Ceratopia article into Ceratopsia, where it seemed appropriate. Although almost everything was redundant, and Ceratopia was much smaller, I found a few things that were in Ceratopia that could easily fit into Ceratopsia. I tried to take care to make sure the wording didn't seem jarring or artificial. I didn't want it to look completely bipolar. --Firsfron 10:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
This is the current first paragraph after the merge:
Ceratopsia (Greek: "horned faces") is a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs which evolved during the Cretaceous in what is now Asia, and then spread to North America where they grew in size and developed elaborate horns and neck frills. Many early members were bipedal but as time passed, ceratopsians progressed to become completely quadrupedal. Early members such as Psittacosaurus were bipedal and had very small frills. Later members, including ceratopsids like Protoceratops, Centrosaurus, and Triceratops, became very large and developed large neck frills and horns. The frills were probably too fragile for defense, and may have been used for display or thermoregulation.
You may notice the bit which is repeated in the same paragraph. Also the part about Asian origins is repeated in a section near the bottom. So what I have done is reverted back to the old first paragraph and added the last sentence about the frills, which is good. Also added the comma in the second paragraph, nice catch. Sheep81 01:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
There's no need for an explanation, Sheep. We're here to build the best possible encyclopedia. I'm all for anything that improves that. :) --Firsfron 04:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I thought an explanation was in order since it was a revert, not just an edit. But good to know. Sheep81 10:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
No worries. Anyway, two lines I added, "including ceratopsids like Centrosaurus, and Triceratops," and "The frills were probably too fragile for defense, and may have been used for display or thermoregulation." are still in there, so it's not even a full revert.--Firsfron 18:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


Aha, I was wondering if there was a discussion on this and am comforted by the above. Linnaean classification is full of mistranscriptions and now has downright anagrams and stuff popping up for specific names. PS: Proably best to be cautious about origins of things,I try to stick words like 'thought' or 'believed' etc. e.g. with Leptoceratopsid ulna found in Australia which may throw a spanner in the paleontological works...Cas Liber 22:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I think there were several discussions on this topic, this one being only the latest. You're right about it probably being best to stick qualifies like "thought to have been" or "believed to have been", etc.--Firsfron 22:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Confusion

Is Otogosaurus actually the name of a specific dinosaur, or is it a family of dinosaurs? In my research, I keep on encountering a specific species of Otogosaurus... --HappyCamper 03:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I see, Otogosaurus is a genus of dinosaur, just like the rest. There may be only one species within the genus: that's quite common for many dinosaurs. This page gives a good source for a taxobox and This page lists the basic details. Does that help?--Firsfron 03:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I suppose...hm...Thanks :-) --HappyCamper 23:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

WP Tools

Since the English Wikipedia was removed from the main cluster on April 11/12th, all the tools developed to aid editors in editing articles no longer work. By far the most useful of these was CatScan, which was a multifunctional tool. I used it regularly to:

  • check the size (in kb) of various dinosaur articles.
  • verify that all the categories had been added to each dinosaur article.

It worked perfectly for both of these otherwise tedious functions. Hours of work took only minutes. The toolserver has been offline for nearly a month now, and there's almost no report of any progress made in restoring it. There's a petition to try to get The Powers That Be to get moving and restore the toolserver here. Please take a moment to sign the petition, if possible. Thanks in advance.--Firsfron 12:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Alright. Will do it right away! Thanks for letting us know.. Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 10:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I signed it in Germanglish. Sheep81 18:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I saw the signatures, and I appreciate them. Thank you, folks. BTW, my Germanglish is about as good as yours, Sheep! :) --Firsfron 21:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

New archive

This page was about twice as long as the recommended size (32KB), so I archived about 42KB worth of stuff. We sure do talk a lot! If anyone would rather keep something on the active talk page, go ahead and move it back out of the archive. Thanks! Sheep81 02:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


A Userbox for the Dino Project

I was looking for some some input/ideas for making a userbox for WikiProject Dinosaurs. A userbox would help spread the word of the Dino Project. Just an idea. Mr. Turcotte 21:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

An example: here

Already have one, actually. Dinoguy2 00:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
This user is a member of WikiProject Dinosaurs.


Ah, I see. Would anyone mind if I made another userbox? Mr. Turcotte 17:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Don't see how it could hurt. Sheep81 19:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, Go ahead. I want another one! :-D Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 07:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I've edited the comment above so that this page isn't included in a cat category. Those cats would be easy prey for our dinosaurs.--Firsfron 21:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi everyone!! I'm glad to see that everyone has pitched in & maintained the project during my absence! I've checked around & you guys have made great edits all over the show. Thanks again... Spawn Man 22:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey Spawn, Dont mention it. And welcome back.! Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 06:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Not too much of a difference, but it mixes it up a little. Mr. Turcotte 00:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

This user is a proud member of WikiProject Dinosaurs.
That's nearly identical, don't you think?--Firsfron 07:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, try putting up another picture if you find one. Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 12:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I looked. Not really a huge selection to pick from. Mr. Turcottetalk 00:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, what is the point of having two nearly identical userboxes? There's one extra word, and a slightly darker background. That's it.--Firsfron 01:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Back on its feet!

Hi everyone! I finally think this project is on its feet. When I first started to create advertisement for it, such as notices on the community board, I didn't think it would take as little time as it did to get the project running. Imagine my surprise when I came back from my wikibreak & saw the number of participants we have! So now that we're finally on our feet I feel we can have discussions on what major ventures we should look into next. Although we have the open task bar, I feel we need a big project to get the ball spinning faster. I've thought about it & I think we either need to create a dinosaur peer review &/or create a simple collaboration. We have basically 90% of the missing dinosaur list covered with only around 100 dinosaurs left. I'm a behind the scenes man so I need the opinion from the other people creating the articles on what they think is more important. A peer review could help us eradicate the articles which are below par, while a collaboration could fix articles quickly & bring more members to the project. So I've set out the following voting thingy to see what you all think. If you could please choose one of the choices or place acomment on an alternative (or something else to do with this) below in the comments department. Thanks, Spawn Man 05:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

There's still so much left to do that I personally don't even want to think about new projects. I appreciate your enthusiasm, Spawn, but there's still so much left.
For example, there are still ~80 dinosaur articles to create. That is a major priority, IMO. Even after they're all created, many of them are in desperate need of expansion. I was planning on using the CatScan tool to compare their sizes, so that the shortest ones could be expanded first, but with CatScan no longer working properly, that's a big dampener to that project.
I did a quick check on the articles with the letter P (a letter I chose at random). 20 of them still didn't have all the categories we decided on two months back. Which means a good proportion of all of the articles will be missing cats. That needs to be fixed. I finished P myself.
Most articles have articles that redirect to them. This needs to be explained why in the text of the article. It's easy enough to click on a dinosaur article and click on the 'what links here' link. Articles that redirect to the main article will be listed as (Redirect). From there, it's easy enough to add in that info, something like Samplesaurus has also been known as Eusamplesaurus. But since this needs to be done to every article, I was going to at least wait until we had blued out the entire list of dinosaurs and missing dinosaurs page, which would make it easier to just go down the list.
We've still got a few dinosaurs listed by their binomials. And there's a couple of dinosaurs that need to be redirected-- I believe there was a dinosaur that was at Samplesaurus (dinosaur) because the main article itself was taken by a zoid (some sort of toy) named after the dinosaur. In this situation, the dinosaur article takes precendence over the toy (because the toy was named after the dino, just as an article on, say, a band named Abe Lincoln, named after the president, would not be the primary article).
Most articles still need basic things like taxoboxes (though I saw Dinoguy working on many), maybe a picture, good strong primary references (the refs I've been including are just quick on-line links so that the articles won't be deleted as "no reference").
A few new articles were created by a young user who doesn't appear to seperate good info from bad, and I haven't yet gone over the latest batch. I don't know if Dinoguy got to them or not (he was fixing them as they were created for a while there), and I fixed a few of them myself, but that user needs to be watched closely.
Sheep is still working on expanding articles with the letter A. I cannot imagine that project taking any less than a year or two, because he's being quite thourough.
There's more I'm forgetting... This is just a short to-do list.--Firsfron 06:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Exactly my point. I want a collaboration, but I didn't see fit just to say "we're going to have a collaboration!", without another alternative. Half of our members, if not over half, are mostly part time dino editors. Sheep, myself, you & dinoguy, as well as the input of a few others, cannot withstand maintaining the articles by ourselves. You're thinking of what needs doing, I'm thinking of the numbers we need to be able to do it before the end of time! I'll quite happily get the collaboration going, & you guys can work on the articles. Half of the people wouldn't be here if I hadn't started advertising. But as I'm not into dictatorship, I thought offering a vote would be better than just going along with my own plan. A collaboration will not only get at least one needing article better, but will draw a few more editors than we already have. All we need is another sheepy & we halve our time down from 1-2 years to 5 months to 1 year. Anyway... Spawn Man 08:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC) P.S. Beside, Sheepy is his own worst enemy!! I created a few dinosaur articles, but sheepy came along & rewrote the whole thing. The reason he's moving so slowly is cause he's destroying everybody elses work (regardless if its correct or not) & rewriting the whole thing. If he does that for every article, it might not just take him 2 years, but he might just have to be buried with a keyboard & dino refs!!
It's hard to argue with your enthusiasm, Spawn. Anything to get this project some publicity is good, I guess. I certainly wouldn't have started contributing if I hadn't seen a notice that the weekly WP collaboration was on extinct animals, something I assume you had a hand in. Re:Sheep "destroying" others' articles: AFAIK, Sheep and GreyGirlBeast are actual professionals in the field. Their contributions lend some much-needed credence to this project. We can all write articles, but having actual paleontologists write articles is a huge boon to our project. WP has struggled lately with well-publicized inaccuracy problems. Let's not let WP:dinosaurs ever become part of the problem. If that means rewriting every word of an article, so be it. Don't be upset if something you wrote gets re-written; that's the nature of this entire encyclopedia: nothing we write will last forever. Cheers!--Firsfron 13:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
To clarify, I am not a professional in the field, although I do have several years of fieldwork and lab time under my belt and I am published. Sheep81 15:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Correction noted.--Firsfron 15:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
*sigh* Actually... the reason I'm moving so slowly is because I'm busy with other things. I wish someone would give me money to write Wikipedia articles, but alas, it doesn't exactly pay the rent. Right now I am working on getting back into grad school, hopefully next spring. If you want to send me a few thousand dollars every month I will finish every article by the end of the year. I have written 3 articles in one day before when I actually got a day off.
As far as the other bit... about "destroying everybody elses work"... next time you post something, scroll down to the part where it says "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." I rewrite articles because it makes no sense to cherry pick sentences that other people have written and retain them exactly as written just because other people wrote them. If I am going to expand an article, and a sentence needs to be moved around or changed so that the article doesn't read like it was written by someone with multiple-personality disorder, I am going to do that. Sorry if that hurts someone's feelings, but someone reading the article doesn't care who wrote what sentence as long as the article is coherent. You are free to edit stuff that I write if you feel like you would like to have it in your own style. In any case I don't totally rewrite everything... check out Antarctopelta, look through the history if you want. I haven't even touched Allosaurus cause I didn't think I really needed to do anything to it... although I may be adding a section or two in the near future if I have time. Sheep81 09:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

You mistook me when I talked about destroying work. I don't really care what you do to the work, but the fact is, if you totally revamp everything, it will take forever. I know we can't change that, as you want all articles to be perfect, so that's why my suggestion for a collaboration arose. Spawn Man 11:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I am using an outdated definition of "destroyed" where it is a still a bad thing. :) In any case, welcome back Spawn! We may have our disagreements but I think we are both important to the Project. BTW, I will vote down there, I just don't know what the Wikipedia version of collaboration or peer review is, so I am going to do a little research and get back to you. Sheep81 15:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Voting on next "big thingy"

I've set out the following voting thingy to see what you all think. If you could please choose one of the choices or place acomment on an alternative (or something else to do with this) below in the comments department. Thanks, Spawn Man 05:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC) P.S. See above discussion for more depth...

  • Create a Collaboration:
  1. Spawn Man 05:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 06:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Create a Peer Review:
  1. I have an inclination to discourage this somewhat...I think it's more efficient if we make it informal, and use the Magic of the Wiki instead... --HappyCamper 21:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments:
  1. I wouldn't mind either one really, maybe even both. I have to agree with HappyCamper that we will have a lot more creative participation if we keep the Project unstructured so that participants can do what they feel comfortable doing. But it can't hurt to get a little help from outside and get a little publicity at the same time. If we do get an article peer reviewed, I suggest Allosaurus or Ankylosaurus. Hopefully we can get one of them on the front page as they are both really complete and good as it is! Sheep81 01:12, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. We had a group collaboration on the "Big 20". Might I suggest another one, on say, "Second fiddles"? You know, fairly famous dinosaurs that get a little less attention. Our last collaboration missed some interesting families, including Prosauropods, Pachycephalosaurs, and early members of most groups. We also left out some well-known dinosaurs that just didn't fit into the Top 20. We could rectify that. The list might looks something like:
  1. Styracosaurus
  2. Scelidosaurus
  3. Monoclonius
  4. Troodon
  5. Pachycephalosaurus
  6. Gallimimus or Avimimus
  7. Herrerasaurus
  8. Dilophosaurus or Carnotaurus
  9. Eustreptospondylus or Ornitholestes
  10. Plateosaurus
  11. Massospondylus or Riojasaurus
  12. Cetiosaurus or Camarasaurus
  13. Mamenchisaurus
  14. Saltasaurus
  15. Therizinosaurus
  16. Minmi
  17. Lesothosaurus
  18. Hypsilophodon
  19. Muttaburrasaurus or Corythosaurus
  20. Psittacosaurus

What say you all?--Firsfron 05:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I dunno, When is it going to stop. Third fiddles, fourth fiddles, NO FIDDLES?? Whynot just the whole list of dinos? I think we should stick to the big twenty, & add new dinosaurs to the list as planned when older dinosaur are featured. Even if anyone agreed to a second fiddles list, it should only be 10 or so. The big 20 are there so that in the future when Wikpedia's best articles are loaded onto a disc (as plans have already been created), the project will have something more to offer than Dinosaur & maybe Tyrannosaurus. A collaboration could quite definitely clear up the 2nd fiddles if they were selected for it. Anyway... Spawn Man 05:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC) BTW, the big 20 isn't a collaboration, rather a larger task of sort. I mean collaboration in the tense of AID or Collaboration of the week etc...
Well... User:BozMo has recently added several dinosaurs to the list of dinosaurs to be added to the CD. Among them are Saltasaurus Dilophosaurus, and Mamenchisaurus, all three on my list above, and not on the Big 20. It's not a good idea to neglect articles that are definite candidates for inclusion on the CD. I'll also point out that when the original List of 20 was created, several well-known families of dinosaurs were completely left off the list, in favor of a disproportionate number of theropods. --Firsfron 20:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Ankylosaurus peer review

I went ahead and just requested peer review for the Ankylosaurus article. It says to mention if you have worked on an article, so I did, but I tried to mention the whole Project as several other people had also contributed information which I incorporated into the recent major edit. Let's see where this leads, hey? The peer review link is here, and we should feel free to make suggestions ourselves of course. Sheep81 09:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Family Names, nomina dubia, and Priority

Ok, so discussions at Titanosaur and Rauisuchia have prompted me to look into the rules of priority governing family-level names based on dubious type genera. On the one hand, we have family names such as Ceratopsidae (based on the dubious genus Ceratops), used almost universally in the literature. On the other hand, we have family names like Titanosauridae (based on the dubious genus Titanosaurus), which are now abandoned by many prominant authors on the grounds that their type genera are dubious. I read through the relevant ICZN rules and asked around to be sure--there is no provision that families based on dubious genera are to be abandoned, rather they are retained just like families based on junior synonyms (like Caenagnathidae, where Caenagnathus is a junior synonym of Chirostenotes).

Here's my dilemma--these guidelines are not, for whatever reason, followed in all the literature. Authors have not argued against them, simply ignored them, so citing these things is difficult or impossible. Example--Coelophysidae, by just about any interpretation of the relationships between Coelophysis and Podokesuaurs, should by all accounts be called Podokesauridae. Titanosauridae has priority over Saltasauridae, Nemegtosauridae, etc. (though in some cases these can be easily converted to subfamilies if a node requires a name). Hadrosauridae should prevail over... whatever else would have priority there. Ceratopsidae trumps Chasmosauridae. Deinodontidae even trumps Tyrannosauridae, but when's the last time you saw this in a paper?

So, do we reflect common usage here, even if most literature is clearly using incorrect terminology, or use the correct names (which would basically be original research)? I suppose we could use the prevailing names and note in the text that the "correct" name is Deinodontidae, etc., but something in me wants to see consistancy in following the ICZN code across all the taxoboxes. Maybe use "tyrannosaurid" as a common name for the article and list Deinodontidae when speaking technically?Dinoguy2 03:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Nomina dubia are, in many cases, arbitrary. For example, Protoavis is not listed as a nomen dubium here, while its dubious status is reported here, here, and here, but none of those sources specifically say it's a nomen dubium. If we were to base family names on the "correct" terminology, we'd end up in quagmires not dissimilar to this on several occasions. It's a slippery slope, not to mention original research. We're not here to revolutionize dinosaur thinking; we're here to report what's known, what's debated, even-- to some extent-- what's speculated, but it's not our place to create a new system of family names based on what we view as inconsistancies. Any time you have a group of experts writing about a multitude of animals over almost 200 years, you will end up with some inconsistancies, but it's not our place to "fix" it, especially since whatever system we come up with isn't likely to catch on in the scientific community, only causing further confusion to readers and later editors of Wikipedia.
As far as I recall, there was a motion to supress several dinosaur names in favor of T-Rex, which was supported by quite a few experts. This may have been the reason behind the irregularity there, I don't know. But as far as us altering family names? I think it's a bad idea, and it's only going to get reverted by another well-meaning editor in the future, anyway.--Firsfron 06:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

More Palaeosaurus fun

I was considering working on the Sphenosaurus article, when I noticed it's mixed up in the Paleosaurus mess. Gah! Suggestions? --Firsfron 01:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It's mentioned in the 1847 section of the Palaeosaurus article already. Seems pretty straightforward to write the article using that post. If you need actual citations I can try to find them for you. Sheep81 22:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I wrote the article. Kind of quick and dirty, but it's done. We're also down to just the last few dinosaurs now, both on the list of dinosaurs and the missing dinosaurs page. If anyone wants a final go, now would be the time (meaning anyone, not you specifically, Sheep).--Firsfron 16:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
That's about all it needed, I think. Nice job. Sheep81 14:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Appreciate the pointers.--Firsfron 15:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Carnivorous dinosaurs

In my opinion, categories based on diet are pretty useless. There's usually only circumstantial evidence that a dinosaur ate this or that, and cats like this only serve to spread the (sometimes) false dichotomy between carnivore/herbivore. Where to put oviraptorosaurs? Ornithomimids? Even troodontids and ceratopsians have been suggested as omnivores, along with primitive ornithischians, prosauropods, etc. Most modern reptiles (and birds, for that matter), are omnivores, and very few are pure herbivores. So... delete it?Dinoguy2 18:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I kinda liked it, but you raise some good points. Naturally, if it's deleted, we'll have to remove it from the four or five pages to which Elmo added it...--Firsfron 18:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Shoot, why not have Category:Bipedal dinosaurs, or Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear, or Category:Dinosaurs with more than 30 tail vertebrae? We can't have a category for everything. Some of our dinosaurs already have 5 legitimate categories as it is (see: Dracorex) I think our setup is fine right now. Sheep81 18:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
You mean you don't like my new category, ((Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear)) ?! I'm so upset... --Firsfron 18:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Sacrifices must be made for the good of the Project. If we create Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear, the terrorists have already won. Think of the children. Sheep81 19:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
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