Talk:Parksosauridae

Proposed merger of Parksosauridae into Thescelosauridae

@Magnatyrannus: proposed that Parksosauridae be merged into Thescelosauridae. Since they used to be merged and I recently separated them, naturally I disagree. The 2019 Herne et al. study recovered Parksosaurus within Ornithopoda, whereas Thescelosauridae was recovered outside Ornithopda and Cerapoda, as a stem Neornithischian. So according to this study, they are separate groups, and thus worthy of separate pages. Cougroyalty (talk) 14:40, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

But is the clade Parksosauridae valid? Magnatyrannus (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

That is undetermined at the moment. There is no scientific consensus on this issue yet. Cougroyalty (talk) 00:14, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

The study recovering that topology does not mean it is warranted to separate the pages when the study does not by any stretch use the terms in this way. Parksosauridae and Thescelosauridae are not in nomenclatural use for anything but the same clade as each other (within a slight gap of definitions). LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:47, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

And they didn't even recover Albertadromeus or Oryctodromeus or Orodrominae. Magnatyrannus (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

My rather lengthy response: I guess I'm wondering why you guys think they should be merged. Could you expound upon your reasoning? But in the meantime, I'll try to better articulate my thoughts on this. But first, here is some background information, to the best of my knowledge.

• Parksosauridae was named and cladistically defined in 2002 by Buchholz as containing Parksosaurus, but not Hypsilophodon, Dryosaurus, or Iguanodon. (a Stem-based definition)
  • (in 2015, Boyd slightly modified the clade definition by swapping Iguanodon for Parasaurolophus)
• Thescelosauridae was named and cladistically defined in 2013 by Brown et al. as Thescelosaurus, Orodromeus, their most recent common ancestor and all of its descendants. (a Node-based definition)
  

The 2015 Boyd study provided this background info in a good table in the beginning. This 2015 Boyd study also recovered both groups with the same members (based on the clade definitions), and thus Boyd synonymized the two, giving priority for Parksosauridae since it was named earlier. It was because of this 2015 Boyd study that the Thescelosauridae wikipedia article was merged into the Parksosauridae page. However, not all studies recovered Parksosaurus and Thescelosaurus together in the same clade.

• The 2016 Rozadilla study recovered Parksosaurus as separate from the Thescelosauridae clade.
• The 2019 Herne et al. study also recovered Parksosaurus as separate from the Thescelosauridae clade, but did not specifically use the term Parksosauridae, since it only contained one member (Parksosaurus).
• The 2019 study describing Convolosaurus also recovered Parksosaurus and Thescelosaurus in separate clades, but it did not actually use the terms Parksosauridae and Thescelosauridae.

Summary - basically, it looks like there are two lines of thought.

• 1. In line Boyd 2015, Thescelosauridae is synonymous with Parksosauridae. If this is the scientific consensus, then merging Thescelosauridae into Parksosauridae makes sense (and that is how it was previously reflected in Wikipedia)
• 2. Alternatively, Parksosaurus could be outside the Thescelosauridae clade, as shown by several studies. If this became the scientific consensus, then it would make sense for Thescelosauridae to have its own page, and for Parksosauridae to be merged with Parksosaurus, since Parksosauridae would only include the one genus.
  

In the meantime, I'm not really sure it is prudent to choose either of these two paths, since the subject appears to be in dispute. Perhaps it might be good to better clarify the two articles, though, if needed. Cougroyalty (talk) 16:55, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

References

None of the studies mentioned actually use a clade called Parksosauridae, though. There is no precedent in the literature of anything called Parksosauridae other than its use as a synonym of Thescelosauridae. To make an article as if such a clade is recognized because it landed outside of Thescelosauridae in a phylogenetic analysis or two seems like blatant WP:OR to me. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 17:02, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by your response. Parksosauridae was named in 2002 by Buchholz. This is 11 years earlier than when Thescelosauridae was named in 2013. But also, the 2015 Boyd study, which I cited above, said that Thescelosauridae is a synonym of Parksosauridae, and not the other way around. So first off, that is two studies using a clade called Parksosauridae. And when Boyd in 2015 synonymized the two, he actually gave priority to Parksosauridae, NOT Thescelosauridae. So if the two are synonyms, shouldn't Parksosauridae become the sole article? But basically, the fact remains that these are two separately named clades that may or may not contain the same members. It is my impression that there is no scientific consensus that they are synonyms. Is this our fundamental point of disagreement? Are you of the position that since no study subsequent to Boyd in 2015 explicitly contradicted Parksosauridae and Thescelosauridae as synonyms, in those exact words, then we must treat 2015 Boyd as the scientific consensus? I agree that those three subsequent studies I mentioned did not explicitly mention Parksosauridae, but by recovering Parksosaurus as outside of the clade containing Thescelosaurus, they ipso facto disputed the claim that Parksosauridae and Thescelosauridae are synonyms. Is it WP:OR to acknowledge that there is a dispute? (It is very obvious, although I suppose not explicitly and exactly stated as such.) I wonder if all of this could be resolved by keeping both articles separate but with much better clarifying wording... Cougroyalty (talk) 17:33, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

The 2002 usage is two decades old and far removed from any discussions of modern phylogenetic theories; I explicitly acknowledged that Boyd used it as a clade synonymous with Thescelosauridae (with priority). What I specifically said is that nobody has, in recent years, used the terms to refer to separate groups. Nobody has acknowledged both a Thescelosauridae and Parksosauridae. Either the term is used as a senior synonym of Thescelosauridae or it is not used at all. To have two separate pages on Wikipedia is misleading at nobody in the literature has expressed the opinion they should be used as two separate things. Papers that disagree with Boyd (2015) on a phylogenetic level should be represented in the text, but to take the fact they don't agree with him phylogenetically and extend that to make nomenclatural decisions they don't make (Parksosauridae and Thescelosauridae as co-existing entities) is original research. There should be a singular page (under whichever name, that's not really the point here) containing a Classification section that acknowledges the phylogenetic dispute. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:25, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Fair point about the limited Parksosauridae references. And I agree with what you said in regards to Parksosauridae: Either the term is used as a senior synonym of Thescelosauridae or it is not used at all. And it looks like it is not being used recently because the recent phylogentic studies seem to be showing that Parksosauridae would be a monotypic taxon that only contains Parksosaurus, and thus the term Parksosauridae is not really needed. It sounds like you are proposing for Thescelosauridae to be the only page, and for Parksosauridae to be reduced to merely a redirect. (A redirect to Thescelosauridae? Or Parksosaurus?) I guess I can get behind that. It is worth noting that Magnatyrannus just recently changed the merge tag to now be merging Thescelosauridae into Parksosauridae, but it is sounding like we want the opposite. (Note that previously, it was the Parksosauridae page that existed, and the Thescelosauridae page was just a redirect to it.) I guess my concerns are as follows: if we are to only have one page, I would prefer for it to be Thescelosauridae, since I agree that that is the one that is referenced much more regularly. But if the synonym theory (from Boyd 2015) gains further support, then I would think the Parksosauridae page would need to exist - but then what would we do with Thescelosauridae? 1. Make it redirect to Parksosauridae? OR 2. Keep it separate, and use the page to describe the history of it (akin to something like Hypsilophodontidae)? And if so, I guess I don't really want to get rid of Parksosauridae, only to end up bringing it back again. But I guess that isn't that much of a big deal... (Stupid Linnaean taxonomy...) Cougroyalty (talk) 18:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

It has been pointed out informally that Thescelosauridae is actually the older term, contra Boyd (2015), so I suspect that term will probably continue to win out long term regardless. But the page history lies at Parksosauridae and so we'd need to overwrite this page in a merge... I suspect until a definitive answer comes out it's best to redirect this to Parksosauridae to avoid the possibility we'd need to move it a third time down the line. Both terms would be bolded in the first sentence and the article would discuss the issue. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:50, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, yeah. It looks like Thescelosauridae was named back in 1937 by Sternberg. I wonder how Boyd 2015 missed that? So Parksosauridae should be the junior synonym, if they are synonyms. All the more reason that the Thescelosauridae page should remain, and the Parksosauridae page should just become a redirect. (As a redirect, it would retain the page history.) Cougroyalty (talk) 21:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

The issue has officially been put to rest: a new paper in PeerJ with Boyd among its authors released today and it formally recognized Thescelosauridae with Parksosauridae listed among its synonyms. Parksosauridae should be moved back to "Thescelosauridae", with this being overwritten, and with "Parksosauridae" becoming a redirect. Debate over the inclusion of Parksosaurus can be discussed therein with no concerns of uplifting the name of the group. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 23:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I stumbled across a small 2018 paper that references Parksosauridae, about a discovery in Mexico. Link: https://doi.org/10.18268/bsgm2018v70n3a10 It doesn't mention much about phylogeny, though, other than that the phylogeny is controversial. Cougroyalty (talk) 21:14, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Was the Herne et al. study before or after the description of Convolosaurus? Magnatyrannus (talk) 21:36, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't know. You could try checking both of those studies. They are free access. But does it matter? Cougroyalty (talk) 18:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Magnatyrannus operates under the assumption that new papers automatically overrule older ones. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Also, in the paper describing Changmiania has recovered Parksosauridae (as Parksosaurinae), possible objective junior synonym of Thescelosaurinae. Magnatyrannus (talk) 22:43, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• Didn't realize the discussion was on this page and not Parksosauridae's, I support a merge of Parksosauridae into Thescelosauridae following Madzia ea 2021. While yes there are certain situations Parksosaurus is outside Thescelosauridae, but it is not used when that is the case, and it remains informal per the phylocode so I dont see a situation in the near future where having its own page is necessary. Seeing as Thescelosauridae is now formally the senior synonym, it should be the page we keep, and the contents are near enough the same already it might be as simple as a redirect to Thescelosauridae. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I've redirected it to Thescelosauridae because Parksosauridae is no longer valid Magnatyrannus (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

I am copy-pasting the exact same comment here I said at Talk:Parksosauridae, because it is important for you to understand.

Magnatyrannus If you had read the discussion here, it was made very clear that following the merge result, an *administrator* or someone with *page moving rights* was to be contacted to preserve the article history. As a result of you hastily and impatiently redirecting the page, we will either have to accept the loss of page history, which is *not advised*, or *revert all your edits so that someone else can properly move the page*. Please discuss on talk pages before making any significant edits to articles like redirecting entire pages. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 01:26, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Merge of Parksosauridae into Thescelosauridae, with history overwrite

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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Magnatyrannus I will ping you again here. Because my formal Request Move was denied as a result of the "ongoing nature" because you cannot stop fiddling with an article in the middle of a discussion about how the article should not be fiddled with. I am also going to ping @Lythronaxargestes, Cougroyalty, LittleLazyLass, and FunkMonk: in hopes that everyone can formally state their peace so we can get this over with *before* more fiddling or worse occurs. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:17, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• I propose that the article at Parksosauridae, moved there from this page many years ago due to taxonomic changes, is used to overwrite, retaining edit history, the article currently located at Thescelosauridae. As the one suggesting this, I support by default. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:17, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Parksosauridae is not used by any authors for a clade that does not unite Parksosaurus and Thescelosaurus, it does not have priority following the ICZN, it is not a formal name following the ICPN, and it is treated as a homodefinitional synonym by Madzia, Arbour, Boyd, etc, including the author (Boyd) who first suggested Parksosauridae would have priority over Thescelosauridae. I think that makes it clear enough that Thescelosauridae should be the page we have here on Wikipedia, and a technical move, overwriting the (nearly nonexistent) edit history of this current page with the more expansive history at Parksosauridae is the best way to remedy the current situation.
• Per what I've described above I would support the proposed action. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 05:22, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yup, I also support, based on the lengthy discussion here as well as at Talk:Parksosauridae. Cougroyalty (talk) 06:02, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Not following this closely, but support based on the arguments raised above and on the new paper. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 08:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support - not a field I've been following either, but I trust the judgment of the people arguing in favour here. FunkMonk (talk) 13:08, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. What is needed here is a round-robin move where the current Parksosauridae is moved to the name Thescelosauridae, while the reverse happens also, coverting the new Parksosauridae into a redirect. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:28, 11 December 2021 (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.