Talk:Big John (dinosaur)

Attribution

Text and references copied from Dakotaraptor to Big John (dinosaur), See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:24, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

National Geographic article

Article about the subject in National Geographic: [1] Thriley (talk) 22:31, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Preprint

Just noticed that a preprint regarding this specimen has been posted online, and the manuscript is currently in revision for the journal Scientific Reports (see here). This preprint shouldn't be cited in the Wikipedia article (it hasn't yet passed peer review), but it will be worth checking back in a few months' time. Ackatsis (talk) 12:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Said manuscript is now out in final form: [2] That does make a slightly stronger case for this article's existence. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:43, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Merge into List of dinosaur specimens sold at auction

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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As was discussed at the palaeontology project[3], there is little reason why we should have questionable articles for specimens that are notable mainly for having been sold, which read like sales catalogues. There is now a list especially for that, List of dinosaur specimens sold at auction, and it has all the information we need. FunkMonk (talk) 13:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, notable for being the largest known specimen. I see no reason to remove the page as a stand-alone topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:19, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, the Big John specimen has widespread coverage across several years, both before and after it was sold at auction. There were Italian and Slovenian news stories in March 2021 during its assembly, international new stories about its auction in October 2021 (including The Guardian, The Independent, BBC News, National Geographic), international news stories about the fossil's traumatic lesion in April 2022 (including The New York Times, New Scientist, NBC News), and most recently (February to August 2023) in Florida news when the fossil was loaned to the Glazers Childrens Museum (e.g. here and here). The specimen is the sole subject of a peer-reviewed scientific article and also inspired discussion about the skyrocketing prices of specimens and the perils of private fossil ownership (e.g. see this article). These issues are addressed by the current article, among other things, and would be entirely lost should this article be reduced to a single row in a table. Ackatsis (talk) 15:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Support per previous discussions; this article on its own violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:34, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

• Merge to Triceratops Anything relevant about the specimen can be covered in the Triceratops article. I agree that merging the entirety of the content into the "List of dinosaur specimens sold at auction" would probably not be viable. I don't think the GWR for "largest known specimen of Triceratops" is worth anything. The specimen is not that complete to begin with, and GWR was hired to give the record by the people promoting the auction before the sale. Modern GWR is a paid PR company, so anything they claim should be taken with a grain of salt. [4] [5]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:37, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

For those who don't know, GWR is the Guiness World Records which has affirmed that Big John is the largest triceratops found so far. Calling them, in essence, liars, does not seem a good look for Wikipedia unless backed up with a great deal of factual sourced data. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, merging this entire content with List of dinosaur specimens sold at auction or Triceratops is not possible because the article is too long. The amount of detail presented in Big John (dinosaur) is way out of scope for those articles, and at most, a few sentences could be merged, if anything. Consequently, it would effectively be a deletion rather than a merge, so a deletion request should be filed instead. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose This single article properly catalogs the one piece regardless of being sold at auction. What you propose to move too, well that article is terrible. The table is horrible there and has multiple access problems there. With this article, at least it has the relevant information which can easily be lost for what you propose. Govvy (talk) 09:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  How, exactly, is the List of dinosaur specimens sold at auction terrible? The table looks far from horrible and does not seem to have any access problems to me. The Morrison Man (talk) 09:46, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Big John is not the largest triceratops found

Henry the triceratops displayed in the Missouri institute of natural science is much bigger although Henry's skull was not found. There is an MSU PDF on Henry if you search for it. I apologize if this is not the best place to put this but this would make some information on the page wrong & I would also like Henry to be recognized (& hopefully get a wikipedia page). Sorry I am nervous about editing so if some passionate wikipedia editor would take up the job that would be excellent :] I also realize that Henry is not recognized by Guinness book of world records I believe because of the missing skull even though size can be determined by the leg bones. 70.57.92.5 (talk) 04:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello 70.57.92.5, thanks for your comment. Most importantly, please don't be nervous about editing Wikipedia but jump on board, this is your encyclopedia as much as anybody's. Since you've posted here you are now an official Wikipedian! As for Henry, sounds good, do you have a source or sources which discuss this aspect of the specimen? Because Henry's head was not found (interesting in itself in that, "where did it go?") this, if accurate, continues to make Big John very notable and hopefully, as you mention, enough sources exist for Henry to obtain a page as well. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I think we shouldn't get too hung up on the "largest known Triceratops" claim — there are always going to be competing statements on something like this and they may depend on factors like the completeness of the fossil. What makes Big John notable is not that he is the largest known Triceratops but the dozens of reliable independent sources that describe and discuss the fossil. Conversely, Henry the Triceratops, although he sounds like a lovely local fixture, may be difficult to cite. I see one piece in the Springfield News-Leader but otherwise sources are a bit thin. Ackatsis (talk) 08:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)