Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive5

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New look for Project page

I also spent part of last night redesigning the Project page to give it a snazzier look and organize it better. I didn't want to change anything official without asking though. My concept is located here: User:Sheep81/WPDinopage. This is totally experimental, I just want to see if there is any support out there for such a change. Sheep81 15:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

That looks pretty cool. I like how the colors sort of distinguish it from standard article pages. One thing I'd fix is the big gap after Parentage, but otherwise, it gets my vote.Dinoguy2 15:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Big gap? Sheep81 15:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's my browser, but I'm getting a decent sized gap in the text between the Patentage heading and the start of the bullet list. Could be due to the image or sidebar or something.Dinoguy2 15:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Not me. Move the picture around and see if it helps. Sheep81 15:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This is excellent. I agree that the colors help distinguish it from out other pages. This will be a great Main Project page. I also wonder if the talk page could be done in the same manner. Also, I see no gap.--Firsfron 19:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Quite honestly people, I think it is a shite idea. Good intentioned, but by no means good. 100% of other wikiprojects are non-colourful. The colours simply distract you from the actual project. The tasks are all mixed up. It will be much harder to maintain, with all the colours & what not. Believe me, something always goes wrong with colour schemes, & I've been around on here enough to know that they take long times to fix. This is no frilly adolesant girl club, it's a place to discuss & plan article improvements. I've spent enough time starting this project up to not see this travesty go through. The main page was bad enough, but now our project pages?! People, this is a bad idea. I STRONGLY OPPOSE THIS INHUMANE TRAVESTY TO THE VERY BOWELS OF MOTHER NATURE HERSELF!!!.... *sigh*... Spawn Man 02:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
In my personal opinion, whether we use colors and pictures or not, the Project page needs to be reorganized and cleaned up as it is currently very difficult to navigate through and some parts are difficult to understand. I like the color and it is not without precedent (see: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tropical_cyclones), nor is the picture (see: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Evolutionary_biology). However, the color is not the most important thing for me. The cleaning up is. Sheep81 02:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Clean away. I don't agree with the big 20 being below all the minor tasks. The tropical cyclones page is grey at best, hardly the montage of colours you have. I don't care about the picture, only the colours. Leave it white, with pic, with big 20 above other tasks & clean up what ever else & you have my support.... Spawn Man 02:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't exactly call that color gray. In fact, I'd say the border is a nice shade of aqua, with a light blue background. --Firsfron 03:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi - sorry to be late in on all this stuff - time incompatibility or something - I like the proposed re-organisation of the Project page - as far as order and lay-out is concerned, that can evolve as it goes. I'm keeping out of the to-colour-or-not-to-colour debate - we don't want to create any sort of confrontational situation - as Bertrand Russell said: "War does not determine who is right - only who is left." Same goes for the debate over the collaboration deal. I am guilty of not having revisited the Project page much at all, which is bad of me, as it is our public front - I'm now itching to have a 'bit of an edit' at it! Can we have a definitive page, so we can do that? I'm NOT going to interfere with content or order of appearance. Sheep's proposed page appearance is nice (and tasteful, not garish - but it's not the only option we have) but I cannot comment on the predicted difficulties of maintenance, etc. as I have no experience of such work. Anyway, we mustn't be distracted from our goal, if we're to be emitting the next featured article (which is not even chosen yet! -:) - is it blindfold dart time?) so I'm for running with the new proposed page, unless the 'maintenance' point is a decider. "Assume good faith" and "onwards and upwards"! - Ballista 04:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what there is to maintain. You stick in some color coding and that's... it. I agree we don't want a confrontational environment over a dash of color to a page. At the same time, it's just a proposal, and should be taken as such. It's not like the page was changed suddenly without consultation. Also: I don't think you're late, Ballista. We just started talking about this a few hours ago.--Firsfron 04:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't like to be pushy, esp. when everyone's putting so much work & effort into stuff, so please consider this as a straight question, not as an implication that things should be done more quickly or even decided more quickly - please can we have an idea when the Project page can be edited by the great unwashed? It seems wrong to try to edit it right now, when there's a new proposed page with a whole lot of alterations in the pipeline. For a start, I wanted to add my name to one or two of the 'open tasks'. - Ballista 02:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Edit away. Spawn has given his blessing to clean it up above, so if you feel there is something to do that needs to be done, do it. You can use my version as a guide if you like, or do something completely different. As long as it's better organized than the current one. Any text that is there can be added into the colorful frame if we ever decide to actually use that, so don't worry about stepping on anyone's toes. Sheep81 03:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Is it tactless to ask if the idea of smartening up our Project page is now officially 'dead' or 'alive'? - Ballista 04:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Formations

Also, Firsfron has done some great work on creating lists for various tasks. They act as a great focus. I haven't applied my mind to how to do this, on Wikipedia. Can anyone produce a list of rock formations needing creating or tell me how to do it? I see Greygirlbeast & General Eisenhower have been working on this and I wonder how much more is to be done. I have added a few rock formations but had not noticed, until a couple of days ago, that there was a listed task for this work. - Ballista 02:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is a very partial list of formations if you like: User:Sheep81/List_of_formations. I only made it through the early Cretaceous. There are a LOT more in the LK but I have to go now. If you want to move this onto an official Project subpage, be my guest. Sheep81 04:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
BTW, a very useful tool for United States formations is GEOLEX. Sheep81 04:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, thanks - very useful lists. There's plenty to work on, there. I'll work on some of the British/European ones first. I'd still like to know how to pull out 'red links' from WP (or even those formations mentioned in articles but without wikilinks), tho', so that we can be sure to tidy up existing dino articles. May be it's just a question of wading through each article in turn? - Ballista 05:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is definitely no need for wading thru hundreds of articles, Ballista. Here is what I do:
TO CREATE A RED (MISSING LINKS) LIST
  1. . Create a page for your list to go on. This can either be a new project page, or one of your own sub-pages.
  2. . Find a good, mostly complete list from some reputable web-site. Copy and paste it (you're only using it for comparison, and the items on it will be disapearing anyway).
  3. . Paste it into a program such as notepad. If the list items have a bit of space around them, use the Edit>Replace tool to automatically add * and square brackets to the beginning of each list-item (works well for hundreds or thousands of items). Use Edit>Replace to automatically add square brackets to the end of the items (that way you don't have to add them all in manually).
  4. . Paste the list into Excel and sort alphabetically (optional).
  5. . Paste the alphabetized list into your new page and hit save page.
  6. . Open a second browser page and set them so you can see both of them at the same time. "Deblue" the list by removing any blue links, comparing your edit page with the other page. Then hit save. You'll end up with a perfectly red list of missing links.
Voila! Six easy steps to preparing a missing links list!

There are many other tools you can use for other editing needs, but this procedure works really well for red lists. Hope this helps! :)--Firsfron 06:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Firsfron, that looks really great and is very obvious, when you think about it (which I obviously hadn't)! Sheep's already given a pretty good list, from the Cretaceous, which is a good start. Any good ideas for finding formations in articles, where editors haven't put the wikilink brackets? Or is that the "wading thru'" job that I was suggesting? If so, I suppose it's 'first things first' and just get on with 'red-link' ones, relying on each & all of us to flag up any others, as we trip over them while editing. In retrospect, I know I've missed a few in my latest editing tranches (laziness at the time). - Ballista 06:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
There is never any need for 'wading'. With 1,000 genera articles, that's just not efficient. You can do 100 articles in the time it takes to wade thru 10. What I would do to find missing wikilinks to formation articles is either: use Google-within-Wiki searches, or use AWB. --Firsfron 06:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Also: there are a number of tools linked on my user page. The majority (gray ones) don't work too well (they give some funky results after a database change on April 12th, but they're still better than wading thru thousands of pages: I highly recommend CatScan), but the blue ones work perfectly.
You can also download AutoWikiBrowser, if you get on the authorization list and your comp meets all the requirements. You could also consider getting a tool called popups: nice for comparing stub sizes. You can do Google searches within Wikipedia (there are several ways), and you can use the 'what links here' tool on the left-hand side of every page: it's great for making comparison lists! There are tons of tools that work really well with Wiki software. I'm sure there are others I'm not mentioning.--Firsfron 06:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all that - I might get around to experimenting with that this w/e. I do have AWB & popups.but I'm a bit of a greenhorn with both, so I'll need to play awhile. - Ballista 11:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


MEANWHILE, everyone, I've posted Sheep's list up on a new Project sub-page, as he said I could, so if anyone has a burning need to create articles on rock formations, there they are - I'll happily tackle the British ones, for starters.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/formations - Ballista 11:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've since added the late Cretaceous formations except for Europe, where I have no clue about the terminology. I know a lot more about Mongolia-China and the Americas. Sheep81 03:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Nice one, Sheep - thanks - Ballista 04:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ceratopsia and Ceratopsidae pages - species lists

had an idea - on these pages are lists of species. In Dodson's book I liked how there is a list which has when they were discovered. Also, may be good if, next to each genus, there was a 2 item locality (eg. Xinjiang,China or Alberta, Canada, or whatever). Does anyone have strong opinions on whether the lists should be: 1. species only (neat but a little dry) 2. very brief geographical entry (like above) 3. date and name of publisher

thoughts fellow dinophiles? Cas Liber 11:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with it per se, but that information would be rendundant with info presented on the specific pages for each dinosaur.Dinoguy2 15:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
True, I guess, but I thought the geography may be good to get an overall gestalt 'feel' where all the taxa were (it is getting more interesting now more are coming from unusual places). I guess the issue with Leptoceratopsidae. I may put a little entry on that family somewhere.Cas Liber 19:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, some sort of graphical range maps for the dinosaur articles might be a vary good idea (range maps are used in some taxoboxes now, like Orca). We could just use dots to represent fossil sites, rather than guessing at an entire range.Dinoguy2 20:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
cute. I like it. With dinosaurs it would only be dots though Cas Liber 01:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea of range maps. I even have a good source or two for that. If we create them, I think we should use maps that show the geography at the time the dinosaur was alive, rather than maps of modern Earth.--Firsfron 07:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Not a bad idea with the maps, or maybe to elaborate the list a little further. I like the idea of adding the location next to the names on the list. Sheep81 02:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

OK - brief geographical addendum would look like this: Cas Liber 04:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC) INFRAORDER CERATOPSIA

Yinlong (Xinjiang, Western China)

Family Chaoyangsauridae
Chaoyangsaurus (Liaoning, Northeastern China)

Family Psittacosauridae
Psittacosaurus (China, Mongolia)
Hongshanosaurus (Liaoning, Northeastern China)
Liaoceratops (Liaoning, Northeastern China)

Family Archaeoceratopsidae
Archaeoceratops (North Central China)

Auroraceratops (Gansu, NW China)

Family Protoceratopsidae
Bagaceratops (Mongolia)
Breviceratops (Mongolia)
Graciliceratops (Mongolia)
Lamaceratops (Mongolia)
Magnirostris (Inner Mongolia, China)
Platyceratops (Mongolia)
Protoceratops (Mongolia)

Family Leptoceratopsidae
Bainoceratops (Mongolia)
Leptoceratops (Montana, USA)
Montanoceratops (Montana, USA)
Prenoceratops (Montana, USA)
Udanoceratops (Mongolia)

Superfamily Ceratopsoidea

Family Zuniceratopsidae
Zuniceratops (New Mexico, USA)

Family Ceratopsidae

The geographical additions are fine to list after the different genera, however, please leave the species list as it is currently organized (in accordance with most recent phylogenies). Sheep81 04:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Um, OK, I agree it looks awkward at the beginning with Liaoceratops/Auroraceratops/Archaeoceratops as to what is in where familywise. However with Zuniceratops it was placed in its own family and essentially everything needs to belong to some family. But I won't stick it in if no-one else agrees. Pity Zuniceratops can't go on the Ceratopsidae page as it has more in common with them really.. Thanks for the feedback :) Cas Liber 01:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
No, everything does not need to belong to some family. Thanks for adding the geographic info though! Sheep81 06:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

PS: So everyone else is OK with the geog. addenda above? cheers Cas Liber 01:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, just make sure you don't refer anything to a family it has not been referred to in print. I lean towards "the more things in families the better" since it's less confusibng that way for most people, but we shuoldn't pigeonhole them unless its generally accepted by phylogeny or at least published classifications.Dinoguy2 15:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Chasmosaurinae vs Ceratopsinae

Also - ICZN has something on this I note about popualr use. Chasmosaurinae was coined by Lambe in 1915 and is in Dodson's book. Was there an official ruling, what does it say in the Dinosauria book? (anyone have it to peek in?) cheers Cas Liber 12:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The official rulnig is that, for family level names, earliest published has priority, just like genus names. Unfortunately, this is not often followed in practice (as was recently discussed here). Ceratopsinae has priority and is starting to be used more by scientists.Dinoguy2 15:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Ichnites

I've started an article on Ichnites. However, I'm getting cold feet (pardon the pun) about the exact meaning. Help! 'Trace fossils' include footprints. My question is: Are ichnites specifically 'fossilised footprints' (as I believe) or might the word refer to the more general term 'trace fossils'? I don't want an error 'written in stone' (oh dear another pun). Either way, I feel we should have a record of the most important/famous finds of dino footprints, somewhere under the Project's umbrella. - Ballista 06:23, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess I missed this message until now. Sorry for the delayed response. We'd discussed earlier the possibility of making a list of ichnotaxa (the animals that make ichnites). I'd started one, but only got down to letter C. There were a lot, and Dinoguy and Sheep both indicated they felt Ichnotaxa were more pseudoscientific, or at least should be kept seperate from the list of "real" dinosaurs (the ones with actual fossils). That said, Elmo's recent creation of Grallator means we'll maybe have to start a cat for ichnotaxa. Other ideas?--Firsfron of Ronchester 14:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd suggest an article just with some major finds (with some illustrations if poss), just to show the world a glimpse of what has been found (i.e. for interest & education). - Ballista 16:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC) P.S.: Could just be expanded version of Ichnite article? - Ballista 17:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Classification of Quilmesaurus

At the moment, the Quilmesaurus article categorizes it as a ceratosaur. However, Coria et Salgado (2005), state "owing to the lack of fusion of the proximal tarsals, it was not recognized as a ceratosaur and is considered related to basal tetanurans because of a notch on the distal articular surface of the tibia." So, where then should we place it, category-wise? I haven't changed the category, but it's clearly considered by Coria and Salgado to be non-ceratosaurian.--Nar'eth 14:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't currently have a 'Tetanurans' category. We also have many unclassified misc. theropods. Is it time for a new cat? What do you all think? Should one be made? Will we have enough to make it a decently-populated cat? Could we come up with 15 members?--Firsfron of Ronchester 14:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Since Tetanurae are (Unranked), I guess this proposal will not be acceptable, but have we any other ideas?--Firsfron of Ronchester 14:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
The Tetanurae article gives a few prospective 'members'. On the basis of the criteria, could Utahraptor, Deinonychus, Aristosuchus be added? - Ballista 16:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm really not certain, under the present system, how to best solve the cat. problem posed by taxa like Quilmesaurus. A 'Tetanurans' category would be awfully inclusive. A "basal tetanurans" cat. might work better. We're back to the issue of formal Linnaean ranks vs. unranked phylogenetic clades. Regardless, I don't think that Quilmesaurus should be categorized as a ceratosaur.--Nar'eth 20:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
It should not be in the Ceratosaur category. At the moment, all basal tetanurans, like basal theropods, are simply in the category Theropods. Don't see too much of a problem with this. Changing to cat system into a real cladogram, rahter than a cladogram-like system, would make it pretty hard to use. Cats should be for major groups, in my opinion, not "wastebaskets" for dinosaurs that don't fit into a major group.Dinoguy2 20:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, personally I think that "major", in this case, is sort of subjective, and I do tend to favour phylogeny over taxonomy...but, yes, I agree that we should have an internally consistent system which is intuitive and easy to navigate. I've placed Quilmesaurus in the cat. "theropods."--Nar'eth 20:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, now we have 75 dinosaurs in the generic cat for Theropods. I agree with both of you that the system should be easy to navigate, and I agree that we don't want to turn categories into "wastebaskets". At the same time, are there any categories we could create that might break these basal theropods into smaller chunks? Coelophysoids, perhaps? Or...?--Firsfron of Ronchester 21:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, in this particular instance, the case of Quilmesaurus, the problem arises from the fact that the paleontologist who described the taxon referred it only as far as Theropoda, and then speculates that it appears to belong within the basal Tetanurae. We can't get more specific here, because the author of the taxon, working with diagnostic but fragmentary material, was unable himself to get more specific. I don't think we should create categories just to make the cat. Theropoda smaller. A little ambiguity isn't so bad.--Nar'eth 21:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I think there are enough articles to fill up cats for Coelophysoids and Megalosauroids. Other than those, there aren't any basal theropods or tetanurans that belong to anything more than monotypic groups. Mainly, I think, because there are quite a few basal tetanurans are incertae sedis.

Alright, so if I'm reading this aright, we've got one vote for no new theropod cats, two votes for adding Coelophysoid and Megalosauroid cats, and no one else yet voting...? I assume Sheep will be back tomorrow, and I assume he will want a word, either way... Anyone else...?--Firsfron of Ronchester 05:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. I just don't want little tiny categories for like subfamilies and junk. Sheep81 06:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Taxobox content

Hey guys. I think I'd mentioned this somewhere before, but maybe we should discuss and possibly codify this on the main page. In my opinion, the taxoboxes shouldn't be comprehensive. For example, check out the taxobox on my user page. That's supposed to be a joke, demonstrating why the taxonomy in these things needs to be short and sweet. I bring it up because user Jerkov has been adding subclassis, infraclassis, etc. to many taxoboxes. Now, all Saurischians are diapsids, archosauromorphs, etc, so including these taxa in the boxes for genus-level taxa seems like its overdoing it. I think sub- infra- and (unranked) taxa should be included only when they denote a subjectively "major" group. Of course this is a judgement call, but adding (unranked) Oviraptorosauria to the taxobox on Ceanagnathus is probably more helpful than adding Subclass diapsida or even Infraorder Coelurosauria. Knowing that an animal is an oviraptorosaur or ceratopsian, etc, instantly gives you a general idea of what the animal looked like and some of its close relatives. Knowing that an animal is a Diapsid is almost meaningless, unless that's the most specific taxa you can get (i.e., Euparkeria, as a basal archosauromorph, so listing Archosauromorpha is a good idea, it helps position the genus). But if you know an animal is a dinosaur, any ranks greater than that are pointless, since all dinosaurs are Diapsids, Archosauromorphs, etc, so leave it at only the most basic linnean ranks (Kingdom, Class). My opinion--save extraneous supra-familial taxa for the pages discussing supra-generic taxa, and use sparingly even then.Dinoguy2 03:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree taxoboxes could get ridiculous if editors expand them overly much. I really like his paleoboxes, and I personally don't mind if he adds in a few extra ranks, but you're right, we should keep this streamlined. Have you talked with Jerkov? Because he's nearly as prolific as you, Dinoguy, so if we'd prefer not to have so many ranks in the taxobox, we'll have to act fast.--Firsfron of Ronchester 04:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I would like to standardize everything above Order.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
...is what I would choose.
Sheep81 06:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Does this also apply for non-dinosaurs? I know it's WikiProject Dinosaurs but many pages for non-dinosaurs (such as Postosuchus) are also part of the Project. Other than that question I agree with this decision. Jerkov 20:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know as much about most non-dinosaurs but I would think that something similar could be devised.Sheep81 21:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Kingdom/Phylum/Class/Superorder works for me.--Nar'eth 21:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, the same should probably apply to non-dinosaurs unless they're very basal and don't have an order, family, etc anyway (same goes for basal members of any group, really. Plesions, if you will.)Dinoguy2 23:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:TX says:

Taxoboxes should include all major ranks above the taxon described in the article, plus minor ranks that are important to understanding the classification of the taxon described in the article, or which are discussed in the article. Other minor ranks should be omitted.

Gdr 18:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Which I think is basically wha we've agreed on here. Superorder is fairly important for dinosaurs, since Dinosauria is a superorder, and there is often confusion in the general public about waht is/isn't a dinosaur. Things like Tetanurae are not important to understanding relationships unless some taxon is a basal Tetanuran (Cryolophosaurus or Megalosauroidea, for example, but not Allosaurus or Tyrannosauroidea).Dinoguy2 19:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Official Collaboration page

Okay, since we seemed to get quite a lot of approval simultaneously above, I went ahead and made an official Collaboration page. Please feel free to edit it however you wish. I just went ahead and called it the Dinosaur collaboration since there seemed to be a little disagreement over what it should be called. What length of time should we be looking at between nominations? Whenever we kind of have it in working order we need to add it to the collaboration sidebar here to make it officially official. You'll notice I nominated Velociraptor for Dinoguy and also that I sent Albertosaurus to peer review.Sheep81 09:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Paleobox content

User Sheep81 posted this message about paleoboxes on my talk page, and I think he's made some very good points. Maybe this is something we need to work out?

Hey, how's it going man. I see you have been adding a lot of taxoboxes to articles. Awesome, awesome work, they really needed it. But hey, I don't want to sound like I'm nagging you after some of the other little nitpicky discussions so far, but I really think the paleobox needs a lot of work before we start throwing it on every dinosaur page. My main objection is that it's just redundant info copied from the article and placed in box form for the benefit of people with short attention spans. On a lot of the less complete articles, this is a good thing as otherwise the information isn't in the article at all. But in more complete articles, especially ones with good lead sections, the same info is already summarized in the taxobox or at the very beginning of the article (see: Albertosaurus for an example). I just don't think it's necessary to regurgitate the information a third time. I also have problems with the format of the box (it just looks really 'rough' and thrown together), and the fact that it refers to itself at the bottom. It's strange having a huge bar on the right side of the page with some of the same information repeated twice, and often times the paleobox and taxobox are different widths, which looks silly and messes with spacing in the article. So I have a lot of problems with the current paleoboxes and I guarantee you an article with a paleobox in its current form will not ever become featured (and not because I don't like it, but because the reviewers will jump all over it). So basically I think I have got my point across that I don't think paleoboxes are appropriate additions, especially not to relatively complete articles, although they may be a useful addition to less complete articles and/or stubs (although the taxobox+paleobox will be much longer than the article itself, which is weird also). If you want to work on the paleobox template and improve it (or better yet, find a way to incorporate some of that info into the taxobox), that could be a welcome project too. Of course this is just my opinion and if you want to bring it up on the DinoProject talk page, it could be a very helpful discussion. Who knows, maybe the consensus will be to keep them and I will look like an idiot for rambling on like this. Jerkov 11:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Sheep hits on a good idea--reserve the paleoboxes only for stub pages. Once somebody comes along to expand the stub, all the paleobox info should be in the body of the text, and the paleobox can be removed. I agree, however, that at least a few items from the pbox should be incorporated into the txbx, such as etymology, distribution, and maybe size.Dinoguy2 16:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Um, hadn't used any paleoboxes on any ceratopsian pages I have been tweaking. I tend to agree with Jerkov Cas Liber 06:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Europasaurus

I've just begun work on an article for the new dwarf macronarian sauropod Europasaurus. It's just a stub at the moment, but I'm having the full paper from Nature sent over this afternoon and will be fleshing it out over the next couple of hours. --Nar'eth 20:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Good work! Just for whoever works on the article, it looks like there's some kind of petty squabbling going on with the authors, as a note in the appendix states that the name should not be attributed to Sander. So, the paper ref is Sander et al. 2006, the genus and species are Mateus, Laven, and Knötschke vide Sander et al. 2006.Dinoguy2 21:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out the problem with the binomen. I'd read the article through twice and not noticed that bit of fine print!--Nar'eth 21:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Cool stuff. I will be a bit surprised if the name is not already preoccupied though. Sheep81 00:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I've just added two images to the Europasaurus article, both of which were released to the press today. However, when uploading them, I noticed that there's no longer a "press release" option when choosing an appropriate license. What gives? Have the rules changed? Anyway, I assume these are okay. They're all over the web.--Nar'eth 04:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated this article for DYK.--Firsfron of Ronchester 01:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration

I've tidied up the collaboration (would be nice if it was left that way, but I know it won't be so *sigh*). I've changed the nomination & voting procedure & shifted the participant's list to the talk page as discussed with Sheepy. The sections are now much less alike & the template thingy that Kirill fixed is beautiful. I hope you all like it. Spawn Man 01:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC). P.S. I've nominated Triceratops just so T rex can have competition....

I like it! Also, having Triceratops go head-to-head with Tyrannosaurus? Inspired! :) --Firsfron of Ronchester 01:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Polacanthidae (Ankylosaur classification debate again..)

I actually wanted to add this onto the archives page but anyway, I just got The Armored Dinosaurs by Ken Carpenter (cool book!) and he seems to present some pretty convincing evidence for Polacanthidae. Is there a link somewhere ti a convincing argument the other way?

Also, some genera like Acanthopholis are described as nomina dubia..interesting..Cas Liber 01:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

He is actually one of the only ones who finds a Polacanthidae to exist. Vickaryous and others still only find the two historic families. Carpenter even crtitiques his own phylogeny later on in another paper. BTW, every paper Ken Carpenter has ever been an author of can be downloaded for free from his homepage (link is at the bottom of the Project page). Sheep81 07:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Layout of articles - headings

Please forgive me if I am going over old ground but I only joined this project recently. Is it constructive to consider a more standardised list of headings for dinosaur articles and a more-or-less standard order of appearance? At the moment, we appear to be pretty haphazard. I don't know whether others would find this too confining/restrictive or whether helpful (esp. in expanding 'thinner' articles). Quite a bit of the editing I have done has been to reshuffle info, creating new headings, reducing repetition etc., which a more 'formal' order of compilation might help to avoid. We could for instance, have:

  • Introduction (no heading - includes derivation of name, geological timescale & Taxobox);
  • Discoveries or Finds or History of discovery;
  • Taxonomy or Classification (latter term may be easier on the reader?);
  • Anatomy;
  • Behaviour/Biology;
  • optional heading to include any other interesting info about any particular dinosaur (if any) with heading suitable to the circumstance;
  • Species;
  • In popular culture;
  • References;
  • External links;
  • Categories
  • No offence taken, if this propoosal were to be 'rubbished'. - Ballista 04:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

- somewhere along the line I picked up some of these but had 'Disocvery and Species' (as one heading as they are generally linked) and 'Classification' as the 2 headings after an introduction. have done a heap of ceratopsian pages Cas Liber 06:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I used to use standard headings but I got into the rut of just cutting and pasting so much that everything I wrote sounded alike. I still have that problem a little bit now actually, but I worry that all of our articles will sound formulaic. Minor concern though, if we just watch out for that, it won't be a problem. I don't mind having standardized headings, but the thing is that there technically isn't even supposed to be a heading at all unless that section is longer than one paragraph. For most of these dinosaurs, there just isn't enough to write about. I guess I could go either way on this one.Sheep81 08:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

All good points. However, I would only propose 'activating' a heading if there was sufficient material to warrant it. - Ballista 21:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

As you'll see from earlier discussions on Sheep's page, I think it's a bad idea. Agreeing with Sheep, it will most certainly sound monotone & similar throughout all Dinosaur articles. When I write an article, I only pick out headings for sections that are too big to last on their own, for unique sections only available to that article & if I want to create an edit break in the page. For example, say a dinosaur has the largest head in the world, you'd put a heading about that etc etc. Or if the taxonomy section was pretty huge, you'd need to put a heading there. Or if the section under the heading "Extinction" was pretty huge, you'd put an edit break in there to slice it up, maybe using "Theories" or "Other theories for extinction". People seem to think that a heading is needed everywhere. This is not so. My vote goes towards using headings only in the circumstances above or we may risk a topic wide epidemic of boredom!! Spawn Man 21:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, folks. All nice points again. I suppose I only had the thought as a sort of internal tool, to try to avoid missing stuff. Perhaps we should just have a 'Heading check-list', for our own use when expanding/building articles? We certainly don't want 'boring'! - Ballista 04:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Derivation question

Hi Project. A couple of days I put up a plea for help on Talk:Aepisaurus. I expect no-one has seen it. Any opinions? - Ballista 04:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Responded. A really good Web-based resource that I use a lot for Greek translations is here. I also find the Dinosaur Translation and Pronunciation Guide on [www.dinosauria.com Dinosauria Online] to be very reliable as it is maintained by an actual linguist.Sheep81 08:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorted - thanks! My Greek was inadequate. (Talk:Aepisaurus & Aepisaurus). - Ballista 09:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Repair needed?

Does anyone else have acres of white space in Stegosaurus? - Ballista 17:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope, just adjacent to the table of contents as usual. Sheep81 17:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Good news but I have white space for the full length of the area beside the paleobox. - Ballista 20:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Me too. The problem is the paleobox pushing the image halfway down the page, and the text moves with it. Removal of the paleobox, or alighning thei mage left, will fix the problem.Dinoguy2 21:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it - I didn't want to interfere, without first checking with the Project. - Ballista 04:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Be bold! :)--Firsfron of Ronchester 05:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Europasaurus on Main Page

Europasaurus is on the main page, everyone! It's in the DYK column! Cool, eh? :) --Firsfron of Ronchester 19:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Sweet!Dinoguy2 20:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Neat - Ballista 03:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
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