Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dinosaur

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[edit] Dinosaur

After it was denied for FA status last time, I made major repairs & hopefully fixed this great article. Please vote support & get this article to the main page... Spawn Man 08:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC) BTW, I'll scratch out requests I think I have completed, please unscratch if they are not....

Please don't unilaterally alter objections from other editors. Only the person who makes the objection should declare it resolved. You've missed the point on objections I made that you struck out, and I've restored them. Monicasdude 03:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Noone else has had a problem with it. You came in here, with a flimsy opposition. I fixed most of what you said, & as my right to be able to see what is checked off, I am able to strike out what I think is resolved. No one else has had a problem. I asked you to ellaborate, so do so or I'm afraid I have to strike the opposition so I can keep track! I'm not going to ruin my whole effort because I can't keep track of what I've done. Spawn Man 03:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Spawn Man, please do not alter other people's votes, no matter what the circumstances. Raul654 uses these votes to determine whether to promote an article. Chick Bowen 23:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I did not alter them. I was merely making an innocent attempt to keep track of what I'd done. Never knew there were so many rules.... Spawn Man 22:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. hopefully it'll make it this time.... Spawn Man 23:10, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Good enough for my liking. —Hollow Wilerding 14:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, nice article. Dinosaurs will always be a part of history. Rawr! --DrippingInk 14:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object NeutralWeak Support.
  1. Get a better picture for the lead. The only reason to have a B&W photo would be if it was the first dino bone discovered (which was later lost) at the discovery site. Try to get a drawing of a living dino.
    I've made the same proposal here. CG 18:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. Captions. Expand them, and add periods.
  3. Expand the content. Get help; yes it's the AID (change the template on the talk) and was the Collaboration of the Week, but see if you can interest a WikiProject.
  4. There are numerous objections on the talk page. Don't delete the stuff in the todo list; use strikethroughs (<s> and </s>). Fix just about all of them.

Meanwhile, it is a good article; with nice references and size. Try to keep it under 50k. But for now, I'm opposed. --HereToHelp (talk) 16:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Try to expand the captions, and keep copyediting.You'll get there. --HereToHelp (talk) 02:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
By captions, you mean the picture captions, am I right? If so, I do not know how I could possibly add dates to them... Spawn Man 21:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
No, not dates. make them informative. Add links and periods. Make them useful. --HereToHelp (talk) 23:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh! Periods, as in "."s and making the captions complete sentances! Time frame would be nice (one of the three eras is fine), but the main thing is to make the captions whole, useful, gramatically correct sentances. --HereToHelp (talk) 23:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
My bidding? Right....Well, this looks pretty good. Not an instant hit...but good enough. Gor for it. Congrats. --HereToHelp (talk) 00:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, your bidding master.... You rang???. Spawn Man 00:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I'll try my best, but you have to be blunt with me, for example I have no idea what B&W means, so therefore cannot fix the problemo. For this request, Captions. Expand them, and add periods, could you please give me an example of what you want, as this I do not also understand. I will also try & enlist the help of the Dinosaur wikiproject, but I fear they are pretty much dormant. So other than that, thanks for feedback & try to explain what needs doing in "simple english" if you will. Spawn Man 22:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
      • As an alternative, I could swap the opening T rex skull photo for the photo of the triceratop's skeleton, so as it is not just a skull picture that opens, or even swap it for the sauropod picture further below that. Comments would be appreciated. Spawn Man 22:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC) BTW, We did have a "drawing of a living dino", but it was on the verge of copyright infringement.
  • Support. The pictures are fine, can't get much better without copyright issues. The content is just enough to not clutter the article, and there are many auxillary articles listed that expand on it. Dinoguy2 23:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, regrettably. It's a good article, but the single-sentence sections all need to be merged into something more coherent. —Kirill Lokshin 23:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I've lengthened out the one sentence sections. Hope this sways your vote? Spawn Man 23:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Support now (although "Saurischians" and "Ornithischians" probably don't need their own section headings). As an aside, is it a good idea to indicate Molecular paleontology as a main article if it doesn't exist? —Kirill Lokshin 23:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
        • It wasn't my idea to put that title there, but I think it should stay incase someone with the expertese in the field wanted to create an article about it. Could everyone please say whether they would like this link to stay or go? thanks, Spawn Man 23:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support This article has truly improved thanks to the article improvement drive. Tarret 23:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Don't mention the 6 hours of work I did..... :) Spawn Man 23:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This is now a very strong article on a doubtlessly fundamental topic. Soo 01:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose Article does not cite about 80% of the assertions it makes. As one example, "while it was once believed that birds simply evolved from dinosaurs and went their separate way, some scientists now believe that some dinosaurs, such as the dromaeosaurs, may have actually evolved from birds, losing the power of flight while keeping the feathers in a manner similar to the Ostrich and other ratites" is a uncited generalization, and the paragraph to which it belongs is vague, weasle-ish, and its other claims are also uncited. By extension, most of the paragraphs in the article are similarly flawed. The lead section is weak, being both vague in its summary of dinosaurs but also containing overly-specific information that is not found anywhere else in the article. John Ostrom's discovery of Deinonychus and the renaissance it supposedly triggered is mentioned no where else in the article. The only place that explains where dinosaur knowledge comes from is the second sentence of the lead, leaving much to be desired—Where are fossils found? What does this suggest about dinosaurs (that they reigned the entire Earth? that certain species were restricted to certain areas?)? What is the geologic window in which dinosaur fossils are found and how do they fit into the broader natural history? The first two sentences expect you to do math to figure out when the dinosaurs reigned. Why is information about fossilization and reconstruction in the "Size" section? The mystery and controversy over the KT extinction event in relation to dinosaurs is not given proper weight, failing to mention how it has implication in things like religion and future possibility of species extinction. The information in the classification section contradicts what is said in say, the pterosaurs article, and that section is additionally badly structured and difficult to follow. Years that are irrelevent to this topic are being linked to despite Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) recommending against it. The article uses self references like "this article" and "see below" and phrases that will be invalid soon ("five years ago", "recently found"). The interesting topic of how people thought of dinosaurs in earlier times is limited to a sentence. After reading this article I have come away feeling unlearned about such an important topic.—jiy (talk) 02:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I am saddened to hear that Jiy. Although we strive for complete perfection in FA's, we cannot always do so. I'll try to fix as many things as I can & will reply personally to you soon. Alas, I did not write most of the uncited sentences you suggested above, so I alone would not be able to cite them. Another point I'd like to discuss is that of the KT extinction. How, may I ask, does the extinction affect the future possibility of species extinction? Also, if you read on the dinosaur talk page you would notice the discussion on whether to actually involve creationism or religion in the dinosaur article. Please leave your comments on this subject there. I personally think the section on extinction is quite adequate; It not oly gives an indepth, overall summary of extinction theories, but also gives the link to the main article on the subject, allowing the reader to delve further into the subject. Why add to this section, which has its own page, when there are other sections in need of bigger work which do not have their own page? We have been told to keep the page size to under 50k, so in satisfying your requests, we may be failing another. Please take this under consideration. I would assume that the information which editors have gotten their information from is from the books & papers & sites under the references section & the external links section. I will reply further on your talk, but will try my hardest to adequately fix your shown problems.... Spawn Man 04:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC) BTW, I hope this oppose is not because I gave you an earfull about disrupting the images?

(following posted at jiy talk)

In reply to your lengthy paragraph about why you oppose, I would like you to do one thing first, to make it much easier for both of us, please divide your reasons into bullet points. I cannot quickly flip through & search for what is needed when all I see is one giant block. I'll try & address all your problems now, but I can't promise I did not miss one or two.

As per subpage, I did not write most of the uncited sentences you suggested above, so I alone would not be able to cite them, but I would assume they were taken from the references stated. If wish to dig through the 1,000 plus edits on dinosaur, find the editor who wrote them & ask him which sources he used for the sentence he wrote a few months ago, then be my guest. I would assume that zero would remember, & since you said that "over 80%" is uncited (I would assume this is a definite exaggeration), pleasing you would require deleting 80% of the article, meaning there would be nothing left. We could complain about it, but lets admit it, over 3 quarters of wikipedia article are uncited & will never be cited. So although your request is legitimit, it is practically impossible.

I will work on the lead section. It absolutley needs work, you are right.

Some of your questions are answered if you read in depth, such as "Where are fossils found? ". Under the history of discovery section it states what some of the general hotspots are & where they can be found. If you want something more specific, please explain.

From my post on the subpage; Another point I'd like to discuss is that of the KT extinction. How, may I ask, does the extinction affect the future possibility of species extinction? Also, if you read on the dinosaur talk page you would notice the discussion on whether to actually involve creationism or religion in the dinosaur article. Please leave your comments on this subject there. I personally think the section on extinction is quite adequate; It not oly gives an indepth, overall summary of extinction theories, but also gives the link to the main article on the subject, allowing the reader to delve further into the subject. Why add to this section, which has its own page, when there are other sections in need of bigger work which do not have their own page? We have been told to keep the page size to under 50k, so in satisfying your requests, we may be failing another. Please take this under consideration.

I do not understand what you are talking about involving the pterosaur article, please explain.

I will change the "5 years ago" reference etc. lso, what would you like me to change the "see below" statements to? "See this section" or something else? Please elaborate.

That's basically it. I'll get on it as soon as I can. Kind Regards, Spawn Man 04:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


  • Support - This may be a somewhat lengthy article, but is just enough to give enough details, without getting lost into the details. It gives a good overview of the new insights in taxonomy. In other words : it's a good starting point if you want to know more about dinosaurs. Just a pity that there are no better pictures available; they would give even more credit to this article. JoJan 09:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, the text is less than brilliant, much of the article is single sentence paragraphs, there are uncomfortable self referential links, the TOC is overly long sections broken down unnecessarily, particularly the bird/dinosaur section and the fields of study section, and as jiy point out there is too much weasel langauge, where primary research backs up the point, cite it. There shouldn't be {{main}} links to unwritten articles. There is a mix of footnotes and harvard notes, references should be in a standard format throughout the article. And while on the references, WP:CITE states you should actively search for authoritative references to cite, so in an ideal world the primary research discussed in all the footnotes would actaully be listed, rather than (or in addition to) the regurgitated simplified media version.--nixie 11:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I have fixed the single sentence paragraphs, funnily, a while before you posted your complaints on here. I fail to see which paragraphs are still single sentences. In regard to the "uncomfortable self referential links", could you please explain what you mean by this? The way I'm reading it, it sounds like I should give them a pillow & a personal massage? The weasel language will be fixed, but alas I did have to sleep last night, & now since there has been an outcry to remove the molecular paleontology link, it will be removed. Spawn Man 21:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, there are too many redlinks. I removed one "Main article:redlink" which shouldnt have been there, but there are still a few remaining. Also not sure about the pic layout changed in this edit which sounds like a threat. It was an interesting easy to read article though, I think its close. ---- Astrokey44|talk 12:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    • (i) Presence or absence of redlinks is not mentioned in the criteria. It is better keep redlinks for articles that are needed than tactically delink to remove them. (ii) What bearing does the putative "threat" have on whether or nto the article meets the featured article criteria (the only potential relevance I can see is 2(e) - "stability" - but moving images does not amount to an edit war). -- ALoan (Talk) 12:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with ALoan here. Astrokey44, you have given me no problems to fix what so ever! Red links are inevitable & I cannot change what happened in the past with the image re arranging. Either come up with something I can fix or remove your vote.... Spawn Man 21:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Astrokey44, I have checked all the article for as you say, "there are too many redlinks". I only found six. For an article this size, it is excellent. Plus all the red links were to key articles that may be created by someone with experience. Your objection is looking rediculous if I may say so. It has nothing to stand on what so ever. There are little red links, no main article redlink any more & the edit summary cannot be changed. Spawn Man 23:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

ok since the main article redlink isnt there anymore Ill remove my objection. Are there any other pictures which would work here, it the sort of article you would expect to have alot of good pictures. I found a couple from commons which might work ---- Astrokey44|talk 03:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Support now. I didnt mean to give the wrong impression before, I do think its well written and comprehensive, there were just minor things which I think have been fixed now. It would make a great featured article ---- Astrokey44|talk 05:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: I have completed the following tasks from everyone:

  • Gotten a better picture for the lead.
  • Change the AID template on the talk page.
  • Wrote to get help from a WikiProject.
  • Fixed just about all of the to do's on the talk page.
  • Merged & rewrote the single-sentence sections.
  • Removed the phrases, "five years ago" & "recently found" from text.
  • Reduced ToC, particularly in the bird/dinosaur section.
  • Removed the main article redlink.
  • Have removed all self references.
  • Have removed all links to years, per manual of style.
  • Have expanded captions.
  • Have added periods/full stops to all captions.
  • Removed double punctuations.
  • Moved all citaion boxes to directly behind the punctuation.
  • Merged short paragraphs in the definition section.
  • Got a citation for the Oort Cloud section.
  • Got a citation for Bakker's work in the warm blooded section.
  • Replaced "The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, is detailed in the July 14 issue of the journal Nature." with a citation.
  • Rearranged hip structure paragraphs to suitable liking.
  • Most foot notes now point to actual printed references.
  • Corrected dino dates in the lead so readers do not have to do the math.
  • Removed all harvard style references into footnotes per MoS.
  • Expanded & cited parts of the evolution section.
  • Sourced that darstardly Cretacious changes section.
  • Sourced part of the history section, as well as many other sections.
  • Explained the theory of the Gondwanaland break up & dinosaurs.
  • Removed all POV problems in the popular clture section that I could see.
  • Deleted turok evolution picture.
  • Deleted Barney picture.
    • Please, could everyone tell me if the like the way the pics of the dinosaur hips, set out by ALoan is adequate? Spawn Man 22:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object—Good work on this so far, but there is a lack of inline citations in portions of the text (the last three level 2 sections have none, and the "Areas of debate", which should arguably have the most citations of any section, has only three). Additionally, none of the notes point to actual print references. Also, the formatting of the citations is poor -- the number should immediately follow the punctuation, and there should be no repeat punctuation (see no. 15 especially -- to make it right, just remove that last period). I'll fix this tomorrow if I get a chance. Last thing I'll mention is that there are a number of very short paragraphs in the "Definition" section. Combining some of those would be helpful, but others seem very poorly placed ("Dinosaurs are extremely varied...", for example). Hope this helps. --Spangineeres (háblame) 23:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I still think the history section needs a source, even if it's only one at the end of the section (if one source covers all the material there). And there are still weasel words and unreferenced claims in the debates and extinction sections:
  • "It has been claimed that..." in Evidence for Cenozoic dinosaurs
  • "some scientists, most notably Gregory S. Paul," in Skeleton
  • "The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, is detailed in the July 14 issue of the journal Nature." in Lungs (replace with citation) Done, can you see if I've done it properly?
  • "according to an investigation led by Patrick O'Connor" in Lungs (documentation?) Completed with above.
  • Gizzard and Care of Young don't have any source (maybe incorporate care of young into the reproduction section, and gizzard into a new section called "anatomy" or the like -- that would help reduce the size of the TOC as well)
  • "The theory first proposed by Walter Alvarez in the late 1970s" in asteroid collision (publication info?)
  • "The environment during the late Cretaceous was changing dramatically." in environment changes. To me, a non-scientist, that sounds rather speculative. Is there a source for that info?
Note that when I say inline citation, I mean either footnote or parenthetical citation -- I believe that's common usage but I thought I'd be explicit. I say that because I'd like to see page numbers on those sources, if at all possible, and including them might look better if done in footnotes. In that case, the note itself might simply list the first author's last name and the page number, allowing the reader to refer to the references for the full bibliography (see welding, for example). --Spangineeres (háblame) 01:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Ah, one more thing -- re the hip image, I'd prefer to see most of the caption text in the article itself. Just keep "Blah hip structure" in the image caption. I don't have a problem with the actual placements of the images, since there really isn't any other option other than galleries (won't be able to read the text) and stacking them (looks bad, unless that section doubles in length). --Spangineeres (háblame) 01:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Support—A few more inline citations need to be added, but I'm planning to do a little work on that this afternoon. Overall, a really well-done article; Spawn Man has done a great job. --Spangineeres (háblame) 14:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting, I'll see what I can do. I admit however, I may need help with the citations part, I'm new to it... Spawn Man 00:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

  1. Support, This article has been GREATLY improved. The time and effort clearly shows. And while there could still be some tweaks, here and there, it makes the grade as a good general overview article. Inline citations are more a question of style preference than a requirement.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 04:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. Conditional Support, so long as no one else objects to unreferenced factual statements, I think this article is very good and shows what's great about wikipedia. - JustinWick 02:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. Support. There are certainly some sections that could benefit from some expansion, and perhaps a few things that ought to be wikilinked. I'll admit I haven't read through the article word-for-word, so I cannot really speak to the language, but it's certainly a more than long enough article, with plenty of pictures, and most if not all of the relevant headings/sections. LordAmeth 03:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Object. The article still needs a thorough copyedit to remove sharp changes in tone (e.g., "The Jurassic Park movies also inspired a couple of console games"; "In fact, most dinosaurs were much smaller than we would expect".) Some texts that fail the verifiability test survive (e.g, the intro comment about Gondwanaland; the fossils may corroborate the theory, but certainly don't prove it). The bringing-back-to-life section is speculative at best, not encyclopedic; the pop culture discussions, in general, have NPOV problems, and suggest that the idea of humans and dinosaurs being contemporaneous is in some way plausible. Monicasdude 16:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
As I have said on your talk page, I feel I have completed your tasks. You have not ellaborated on how I can do more, but instead attack me. Plus, if you want a request done promptly, do not use "long" "waffle" words, (usually said to make the user sound more important), like contemporaneous. I have not idea what the heck that means & it isn't in the text. Use proper words please. Spawn Man 22:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object:
    1. The image Image:Triceratops 1.jpg is tagged as GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike. Both of these require the creator's name and copyright statement to be included with the image, but there's no sign of it. I could delete the image or keep it, but I cannot find any sign of creator other than the person who uploaded it... Please ellaborate..
      • You could try emailing the uploader and ask if he created it. --Carnildo 00:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
    2. The image Image:Barneythedinosaur.jpg is tagged as "fair use", but Barney is only mentioned briefly in the article. This does not seem to qualify for fair use. Removed picture
    3. The image Image:Turokevolutionbox.jpg is tagged as fair use, but seems to be used for decorative purposes only. This is not allowed under Wikipedia:Fair use.Removed Picture
    4. Much of the "in popular culture" section is unsourced. For example, what is the claim that "Jurassic Park, brought dinosaurs into the media spotlight"? Dinosaurs were popular well before that. I do not understand the problem here. I have rewritten the example above to sound less POV, but I did not know you needed to cite obvious things like "Jurrasic park lead to two sequels" or "dinosaurs have been used in these games..." Please explain
      • The statement "Jurassic Park had two sequels" is a fairly self-evident fact and does not need to be sourced. The statement "Due to the popularity of the movies...dinosaurs have become a permanent fixture in today's world" is an opinion, and needs to be sourced. --Carnildo 00:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
    --Carnildo 07:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting, I feel I've fixed most of what you've asked... Spawn Man 22:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Support - tremendous piece of work for a fourteen year old. Some of issues identified above are real, but I'm certain SM will get to work on them over the weekend.--File Éireann 10:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support: This article has really turned around. RENTASTRAWBERRY FOR LET? röck