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Should we ban Richard.sutt?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this, but as we all know Richard.sutt has been a nuisance to this community without any intention of letting up. I'm sure IJReid has quite a headache trying to revert the constant flow of disconstructive edits to ceratopsian pages. Unlike Bubblesorg (who is clearly just inexperienced), I'm convinced that Richard.sutt is malicious in his edits. I just found out that he went to the page of every ornithomimosaur with a taxon identifier code and screwed it up by replacing the code with random numbers. That could not have been an accident, right? We need to do something about him. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 01:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Could he be a sockpuppet of that banned guy?[1] Apart from adding copyrighted images, he does seem to have done some good work over at Dysganus at least... FunkMonk (talk) 01:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC) FunkMonk (talk) 01:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I think he's different. Not much overlap with Ozarcusmapesae or the other sockpuppets. Nevertheless, he's very disconstructive even if he's not outright fabricating info. You seem to have not experienced the pain that dealing with him brings. I've had to revert his edits to the Megalosauroidea template 5 times already (he keeps trying to add "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis, a dubious spinosaurid). He keeps trying to rename Chasmosaurinae to Ceratopsinae and he keeps putting dubious taxa in places they don't belong. He's a nuisance to most people around here, especially those who focus on ceratopsians like IJReid and Lusotitan. Not to mention the whole screwing up ornithomimosaur taxon identifiers. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 02:16, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, not defending him as such, just pointing out that he seems to be able to do constructive stuff. In an case, he never seems to answer when approached, which makes it pretty hard to work with him. FunkMonk (talk) 02:25, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I agree. However we need to understand if Ozarcusmapesae and Richard Sutt could be the same person. Only problem Richard sutt does not have a talk page. Its weird because Richard seems to keep editing the hell creek Ceratopsid page. However even if we ban him I do feel bad. He/She could be a little to young to edit wikipedia pages. However i am assuming its some snarky kid in his late teens who is a paleo nerd but just wants to cause trouble. I do admit i am unexprienced and i do turst you guys/gals with editing as you are a bit more experienced but stuff life this is more annoying because its just plane false. This person has repedtly attacked the cerotopsid page. And i am sorry if i was not there if you needed my help in keeping the article safe but here's a list of what havoc has happened on the ceratopsid list this week agian this person could just be trying to help but has some major problems this is the havoc I have so far... Bubblesorg talk 03:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Extended content

(cur | prev) 14:18, 5 June 2018‎ IJReid (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,745 bytes) (+98)‎ . . (that is OR) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) (cur | prev) 05:42, 5 June 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,647 bytes) (+3)‎ . . (Undid revision 844478111 by IJReid (talk) well if it's a potentially identical to Triceratops it is by extension) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) (cur | prev) 05:40, 5 June 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,644 bytes) (+9)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 05:25, 5 June 2018‎ IJReid (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,635 bytes) (-3)‎ . . (never assigned to Chasmosaurinae) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 21:38, 4 June 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,638 bytes) (+89)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 04:37, 2 June 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,549 bytes) (0)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 02:40, 31 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,549 bytes) (+1)‎ . . (→‎Classification: spelling) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:51, 28 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,548 bytes) (0)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:50, 28 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,548 bytes) (+47)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:06, 28 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,501 bytes) (-58)‎ . . (Shouldn't be here, the type species at the very least is undoubtedly dubious.) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 23:38, 27 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,559 bytes) (-14)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 23:37, 27 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (15,573 bytes) (+13)‎ . . (nvm) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 22:48, 27 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,560 bytes) (-14)‎ . . (→‎Classification: specimens from montana do not belong to monoclonius) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 01:23, 26 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,574 bytes) (-14)‎ . . (Undid revision 842934045 by Richard.sutt (talk) This is obvious from the content and existence of the entire article...) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) (cur | prev) 17:44, 25 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,588 bytes) (+14)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 02:59, 23 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,574 bytes) (-231)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 20:57, 22 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,805 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 17:26, 22 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,805 bytes) (-1)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 17:06, 22 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,806 bytes) (+6)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 17:05, 22 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,800 bytes) (0)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 17:04, 22 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,800 bytes) (+30)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 17:52, 20 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,770 bytes) (-24)‎ . . (Please take the Ceratops thing to the talk page if you feel so strongly it needs to be included.) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 01:28, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,794 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 01:25, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,794 bytes) (+170)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 01:07, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,624 bytes) (+2)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:44, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,622 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:44, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,622 bytes) (+21)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:42, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,601 bytes) (+45)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:39, 20 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,556 bytes) (-307)‎ . . (→‎Classification: Please, stop inserting dubious taxa.) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:38, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,863 bytes) (-18)‎ . . (Albertan species of Ceratops have been reclassified to Eoceratops) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:35, 20 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,881 bytes) (-280)‎ . . (Yes, they should be excluded. That's how it's done across the entire WikiProject. Removed links to more specific subgroups in the taxobox, half of them are redirects to the above group, and they aren't to be included since Centrosaurinae and Chasmosaurinae have pages.) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:34, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,161 bytes) (-1)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:31, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,162 bytes) (+2)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:30, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,160 bytes) (0)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:30, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,160 bytes) (+36)‎ . . (Ceratopsinae is dubious, yet it shouldn't be excluded from the taxobox only have a question mark placed by it or the label nomum dubium) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:27, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,124 bytes) (+174)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:22, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,950 bytes) (-14)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:19, 20 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,964 bytes) (+114)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 19:09, 15 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,850 bytes) (-18)‎ . . (Undid revision 841373007 by Richard.sutt (talk) Once again, this is false.) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) (cur | prev) 13:01, 15 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,868 bytes) (+18)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 20:25, 14 May 2018‎ Lusotitan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,850 bytes) (-18)‎ . . (Undid revision 841255441 by Richard.sutt (talk) Nobody argues for a Ceratopsinae with any valid taxa.) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) (cur | prev) 19:56, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,868 bytes) (+18)‎ . . (undo | thank) (Tags: Mobile edit, Mobile web edit) (cur | prev) 17:48, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,850 bytes) (+8)‎ . . (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:19, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,842 bytes) (+2)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:18, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,840 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:17, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,840 bytes) (0)‎ . . (→‎Classification) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 00:15, 14 May 2018‎ Richard.sutt (talk | contribs)‎ . . (15,840 bytes) (+23)‎ . . 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He seems to have an interest in Herbivorous dinosaurs too i have noticed. Bubblesorg talk 03:37, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• Slightly different mode than Ozarcusmapesae, so at this point I don't think it's the same guy - but definitely creating exactly the same problems: lots of bullshit larded with just enough constructive edits to make it infeasible to indict them outright for vandalism. Had a look at the ornithomimosaurs just now; he can't have checked a single one of them after the alterations, otherwise he might have noticed that his changes were non-functional. - I suggest it's again a case of watch and wait a little, and if the CIR piles up, make an ANI report. (Or if you are reading this, Richard.sutt, maybe you could just improve your game significantly...?) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Bubblesorg - signature goes at the end, not at the beginning, of your contribution. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

(Bubblesorg (talk) 12:52, 6 June 2018 (UTC))Ok we may need to keep our language down. But i agree the Sutt has not been following any and i mean ANY of the terms.

I've been dealing with him for a while now, and remain unconvinced he's a vandal. Most of the edits I've had to revert involve either attempting to add stuff against guidelines (often dubious taxa), or trying (and usually failing) to modify a taxobox. Sometimes his idea isn't even off the mark, but he ends up making fifteen different edits to a page before giving up, due to his incompetency with Wikipedia's code and apparent complete lack of use of the preview button. I'm thoroughly tired of dealing with his messes over and over, but I don't think we can rightfully accuse him of vandalism. That's the only reason I've not brought him up myself, I just don't see any objective ground to stand on regarding dealing with him. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Constant WP:CIR is a perfectly legitimate, and often successful, reason for making a fuss - but I think we need a little more basis than we have now. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:22, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

(Bubblesorg (talk) 15:16, 7 June 2018 (UTC))Lets not ban him actully he might be of some help.

• Note that another problematic and prolific user, Caftaric, was just blocked indefinitely[2] as a sockpuppeteer, with this as the puppet master:[3] They made a lot of weird categories for palaeo articles that should maybe be looked at. FunkMonk (talk) 16:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Richard.sutt. I promise I'm not a sockpuppet this is my first ever wikipedia account and yes I am new to editing so I often have trouble. I'll make sure to use the preview button next time. I feel like I have been constructive though. I corrected all 3 Centrosaurine tribes to be classified as tribes and I don't want to be banned. All I'm doing is trying to help. I had no idea adding dubious taxa was againts guidlines and when I kept adding Ceratopsinae I would never try to replace Chasmosaurinae with it. I create taxoboxes for Dinosaurs that have things like "superorder" = Dinosauria and I just want to contribute. I assure you I'm not trying to troll any of you and It would be better if one of you could teach me how to edit (for example I want to add Pachyrostra to the Ceratopsidae template). I'm deeply sorry If I seem like a nuisance :(. The whole Ornithomimosauria thing was an accident. (Richard.sutt|talk)

Thank you for responding. I'm glad that you are not a vandal, and I apologize for starting a whole discussion on banning you. Now I see that you just need a bit of assistance, and we'll be happy to help you. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 20:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Glad to see you finally talk, its already an improvement. One of the most important editing tips for you at this point is the preview function, a button besides the blue "Publish changes" button that allows you to see how your edit will look if published. Another useful tip is to always put ~~~~ at the end of your comments on talk pages like here, the four "waves" automatically add in your username and timestamp saving time and effort (see here ->) IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I will make sure to do so :). (Richard.sutt|talk)Richard.sutt (talk) 06:37, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Also please do keep an eye on your talk page. If a notice pops up there, it's usually for a reason and requires some communication. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

And, please, no more edit wars. When you get reverted, discuss on the article talk page instead. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Of course; will do. Richard.sutt (talk) 16:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC) I have been in your same place.--Bubblesorg (talk) 01:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Tarbosaurini and Tyrannosaurini

Just wanted to indicate that I removed both of these from Tarbosaurus, Zhuchengtyrannus, and Tyrannosaurus because no body has argued for them in any publication after 1906 (for Tyrannosaurini) and since 1995 when Olshevsky named the Tarbosaurini (only for it to become one of his rejected ideas). (User talk: Richard.sutt)

Probably a good idea, but in the future, things like this would be better served being brought up on the relevant talkpage (in this case Tyrannosaurinae). Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Should Baryonychinae be removed from the Spinosauridae template and the Taxonomy templates?

Considering it may be non-monophyletic. I added it to the taxobox a while ago but it was removed. Allain et al. argued for it in 2012 on the other hand so I'm not sure if it should or should not be there. (User talk: Richard.sutt)

Too much of an uncertainty currently. On the Spinosauridae page it should remain (most supported opinion) but on individual taxon pages it doesn't need to be listed (Cristatusaurus, Ichthyovenator, Suchosaurus etc). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:04, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok. (User talk: Richard.sutt)Richard.sutt (talk) 05:56, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Taxbox Guidelines

One of the larger sticking points we've had with Richard.sutt has been the inclusion of certain things within the taxoboxes of groups and lists within the page. Namely, the inclusion of dubious taxa and the expansion of linked subgroups. While we seem to be in relative agreement about taxobox format (link only as far as necessary, no dubious taxa, alphabetical order), I think it'd be good idea to formalize these on the WikiProject page (or perhaps in a higher-level guideline or WikiProject), since Richard.sutt could make a valid defense that there are no rules layed out here about the topic. If such higher levels guidelines exist already, they should at least be mentioned and linked to on our project page. I additionally think that it would nice to touch on the inclusion of a list in the page itself in addition to or instead of in the taxobox, as seen on pages such as Ceratopsidae and Pachycephalosauria respectively. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems like a plan, even the paleo project has a section on taxoboxes, though it's not so detailed:[4] FunkMonk (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Should I just write up a draft to be included on our WikiProject page, or should it be brought up in a higher level project such as WP:TOL or WP:PALAEO? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 17:48, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it should be brought to a higher level that the dino project simply because of relevance. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 22:40, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I had no idea that adding dubious taxa was wrong because it didn't say so anywhere. For example, I expanded the taxobox on Ankylosauridae and fixed the template on Nodosauridae that was missing a subgroup but I added (?)Crichtonsaurus to the list. I thought the rule for dubious taxa was to include a (?) before the name of the taxa. Guidelines would be helpful :). (talk)Richard.sutt (talk) 20:14, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Just to note that there is some advice at Template:Taxobox#Classification. Taxoboxes, like all infoboxes, are meant to summarize (see WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE), and aid readers in navigation. They are not meant to give a complete classification of the taxon in question. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The former link is certainly helpful. Based on what it says, no taxbox in the WikiProject should be using the "see text" approach for subgroups; no page has to cover so many taxa that this is necessary. The one borderline case might be Titanosauria, where I've gone and used that column division code mentioned there. Regarding infoboxes not standing in for having information in the text, I feel taxoboxes would be a logical exception; putting a potentially quite long list in the middle of the article is simply unintuitive. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 17:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Ornithoscelida

Is Ornithoscelida not very uncertain? It is on the Ornithodira template and I'm not sure if it should be there. (User talk: Richard.sutt)Richard.sutt (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree, it should just list the individual subgroups like the Dinosauria page does. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Er, the template appears to have exploded in various disarticulated pieces. See the bottom of the Avemetatarsalia article to see what this looks like. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:32, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's been dealth with fine now. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 13:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Uh, nope, there's distinctly a bunch of code leaking out the bottom as of writing this. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 15:23, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's bassically just a crapstorm. I added Herrerasauria to match the Dinosauria page but it's still so jumbled. (Talk)Richard.sutt (talk) 21:20, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Dinosaur navboxes

Since this is directly related, I thought I would bring up a point, navboxes aren't supposed to be used at such a large scale as the IP here is doing. WP:Navboxes should be seen here. I think they are at an unreasonable point, where someone at Sauropoda for example, or Campylognathoides would not want or need to navigate to Hypselosaurus or Dilophosaurus respectively. Wha should we do here? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 01:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Should me make templates for Hadrosauroidea?

All the other dinosaur groups have them. I don't even know why there are not any. There are tons of taxa but that goes for Sauropodamorpha too and it has templates. (talk)Richard.sutt (talk) 19:15, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

It's already covered as part of the Ornithopoda template. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:49, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Short descriptions

I've just become aware of WP:SHORTDES, and was curious if there's any standard for how we want to write these out for dinosaur articles. For Edmontosaurus, I wrote the following:

"Hadrosaur genus from Late Cretaceous US and Canada"

This includes the four essential facts of clade, rank, rough time period, and location in as non-jargony way as is possible with 50 characters (over the recommended fourty, but only since it's known from two countries). The description put on the Siamosaurus article (which brought the feature to my attention) is:

"A genus of theropod dinosaur from Early Cretaceous Thailand"

This has the same information, more or less, but it unnecessarily pads out space with a more proper sentence format, which is discouraged. It has reversed the order of information, with rank before clade; I put the latter first as its more important in my opinion. What I'm asking is if we want to make a standard format for all dinosaur articles, such as:

"[Clade] genus/species from [epoch] [location]"

Thoughts? Higher-level clades may be more difficult. It may be worth checking other parts of the WP:TOL project and seeing how they're written there. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:07, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Not aware of these, but it seems like something a bot could very easily handle and I agree with the ordering suggested. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 19:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I think they should all make clear that these are dinosaurs. Genus and family name alone wouldn't convey this to most people. FunkMonk (talk) 19:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

There hasn't been any discussion about what short descriptions should look like in other parts of WP:TOL, and there has been very little effort so far to add them. There are now about 3000 taxon articles (out of almost 400k) with short descriptions (see here, link will be slow to load). AddWittyNameHere is responsible for most of the short descriptions now in taxon articles. Might as well start the conversation here, and other parts of WP:TOL can build on what you folks decide. Plantdrew (talk) 19:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I did pause at use of the word hadrosaur, but using two higher ranks in a single short description is making a bit longer than desired, and just using "dinosaur" for each all dinosaur taxa is going to make them very uninformative. Turanoceratops and Ornithomimus for example would have the exact same description. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:45, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I think something like "ceratopsian dinosaur" or "ornithomimid dinosaur" is fine. Otherwise the short descriptions will mean nothing to most readers, they shouldn't be too esoteric. FunkMonk (talk) 19:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I've mostly been doing work on insect taxa. In those cases, location isn't a particularly useful part of the description imho because there are a *lot* of taxa that are widely-but-not-globally distributed, taxa where the distribution is uncertain or incomplete and taxa where we just lack *all* distribution information. (Plus, how do you describe a family that, across its genera and species, occurs on several continents, has a couple of genera that across their species occur on all said continents, but that has no single species that does so much less all its species doing so, without sacrificing either brevity or clarity? A fairly common situation with many insects) I imagine that as a rule, things are somewhat different for Dinosaurs, though. Similarly, the epoch information is useful for Dinosaurs and other fossil taxa, but not so much for extant species.

My main system for crafting short descriptions for insect taxa has been:

• Monotypy and/or extinction if applicable;
• Vernacular name for the broader animal group (in a form at least roughly recognizable by non-taxonomy inclined people – e.g. 'bee', 'moth', 'butterfly', 'carpenter bee', 'skipper butterfly' or 'bagworm moth' would all be fine by me, but not 'carpenter', 'skipper' or 'bagworm' even if it's shorter);
• Taxon rank of the article's subject;
• Some further taxonomical placement, usually genus for species articles, families or subfamilies for genus articles, etc.

The exact form my short description takes varies a bit ("Butterfly species in genus Curetis" - Curetis spp.; "Extinct monotypic genus of moths in family Micropterigidae" - Moleropterix; "Species of many-plumed moth in genus Alucita" - Alucita spp.; "Species of leafcutter bee (Megachile)" - Megachile spp.) with a very rough and not entirely consistent (see e.g. Lecithocera spp. which in spite of using a one-word vernacular name are done in the 'taxon of animal' order) personal preference for the "animal taxon" order when 'animal' takes a single-word form, the "taxon of animal" form when 'animal' takes a multi-word form and the "vernacular name (scientific name)" form when vernacular name and further taxonomical placement describe the same taxon, both to reduce redundancy and to avoid giving the impression these refer to two different things when they're in fact the same.

I don't doubt there are cases where my descriptions could be further tweaked and improved, but at utter least they're both valid and a significant improvement on the utterly unspecific WikiData description "species of insect" that will otherwise be used for just about every insect species at en.wiki. (P.S. @Plantdrew:, would you prefer I refrain from adding further short descriptions—at least other than on articles I create—until this discussion has finished, or no need to?) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@AddWittyNameHere:, I have no preference for adding short descriptions now or later. But I am very happy to see you working on speciesbox conversions, if you want to do that while discussion continues. Plantdrew (talk) 21:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Plantdrew:: I'm flipping back and forth through a few different tasks because most of them are high-volume, high-repetition, high-tedium and I need some variation if I don't want to grow utterly frustrated with the amounts of work that needs doing. Speciesbox conversions are one of them and I certainly intend to continue them, though how much and when will vary. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I considered adding the word "extinct", but since they're non-avian dinosaurs, that's implied (at least if we add in "dinosaur" after the [clade] part. The vast majority of dinosaur genera are monotypic and the species don't get articles anyways, so that seems unimportant for us. Like you mentioned, location and time period are super important for fossil animals but not modern insects. Overall, this serves as a good example of how it's going to vary a lot depending on the kind of organisms we're talking about. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Yup. Taxon rank and some form of specification of what kind of taxon it is are probably going to be fairly constant (hopefully in a manner somewhat understandable to a layperson, though I'll grant that's easier in some areas than others) as relevant across the entire ToL; everything else will likely be dependent on the exact considerations involved in any particular area. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

But be careful, I had a problem on Baleen whale where the short description was “a parvorder of the infraorder Cetacea”   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:01, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that's one spectacularly useless short description to everyone who isn't already highly familiar with taxonomy. Higher taxa mostly need more 'descriptive' rather than formulaic short descriptions anyway. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 23:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Ceratopsia GA Reassessment

Just placing a notice that I submitted a GA reassessment for the article Ceratopsia, since it's an important article nowhere near meeting the criteria. See more at Talk:Ceratopsia/GA1. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:07, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I think back then the GA process was more about someone adding a rubber stamp pass than actually reviewing the article (see the section "GA review by [[User:Mmoyer|Mmoyer"). So we probably have many old GAs, and even FAs, in that state. The question is if anyone is willing to improve them to a modern standard. I think it might be better to try to improve such articles than to for example formally mass-nominate them for reassessment, because we'll lose a lot of GAs and FAs, as we don't have the man power to improve them in the short term. FunkMonk (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I haven’t taken a look at the article yet and I am pretty busy these few weeks, but if you have any specific changes in mind, I’ll try my best   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  13:03, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Of course there's no need for mass reassessment, but this one stands out as easily one of the worst. I don't have current plans to do any more at the moment, which I mentioned in the review. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 13:55, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Imo a difficult topic where we need to seek balance. For sure, delisting GAs will demotivate, especially authors involved. It is especially demotivating if your articles become delisted mostly because requirements increase over time. This increase in requirements is very natural: authors become better over time, and increase their expectations for themselves and others. But this will also increase the hurdle for newcomers to contribute. I really like the GA system as it clarifies criteria an article must meet, and these criteria are actually not asking for too much. We should always keep this in mind. On the other hand, delisting very bad GAs will secure the status of a GA as a proper quality badge, and thus, in the longer run, can also lead to more motivation for people to add their articles to this category. And last but not least we have to think about our readers, who may see GA labels as a quality seal. So yes, it is difficult. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:10, 30 June 2018 (UTC

Once again, I feel in most cases it's fine to leave things as they are (as with Rajasaurus), but in this case we see a very important article that's not even close to meeting the standards of GA, and it was written by and reviewed by editors not even active on the site anymore. Regarding FunkMonk's comment, I feel that it's no issue if we don't have the manpower to replace lost GAs and FAs - they're a mark of good work, not a count we should be measuring our worth by. If we have less because we don't have that many articles that deserve it, then that's fine. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:07, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

It's been two weeks; does anyone have any objections with the criticisms toward the article and the conclusion it should be delisted? The wider issue of demotions needs further discussion at some point but this particular case should be finished if there's no disagreement. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

For my part, please go ahead. We could, of course, just improve the article, maybe with a small coorporation; there are some nice reviews on the topic, it wouldn't be too difficult. I have to say, however, that I personally can barely free up any time this month, due to real life issues. In any case, if somebody is interested in working on it, I would be glad to help out with any literature that might be needed. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Washington (State) theropod

What even is the point of this article? The Australian Spinosaur was one thing, but it's unclear what this theropod even is! I don't think that it needs an article. What do other people think? Remember, we can't have an article for every potential new species that is as of yet unnamed. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 10:52, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, we need some guidelines about only formally named dinosaurs having articles, as was discussed here:[5] FunkMonk (talk) 12:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I have to say I am quite interested that this is the only dinosaur discovered in Washington state (as someone who lives here). Maybe the name could be changed to the specimen name UWBM 95770, and Washington dinosaur and Washington theropod could be redirects? It could be added who found the thing, where it is now, and possible classification   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  13:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that the specific specimen is significant locally and paleobiogeographically, which means it is at least slightly notable. It also is better described than "Capitalsaurus" or pre-2018 "Arkansaurus". Dunkleosteus77 would you be willing to work on the article? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 14:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I’ll work on it with Bubblesorg   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Bubblesorg (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC) OK Wikipedia was a site were information is supposed to be spreed so do not delete this page.

Bubblesorg (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)Better point put it in the Paleontology in Washington state.

The fact that we conventionally merge fossil species content into genus articles, even when there are multiple sources on individual species, would suggest we should also do the same for unnammed bones. We can come up with possible "claims to fame" over any freaking specimen ("first adult theropod skull from the X-formation of Oregon described in the 21st century by a woman"...), and we shouldn't let what's noteworthy to Washingtonians (a tiny fraction of Wikipedia's readership), or even to ourselves ("I think this is cool so it should have an article") dictate the structure of articles in this encyclopedia. Even if this subject meets the bare-bones WP:GNG, common sense would indicate it be better off as a sentence or footnote in at least a half dozen existing articles. Outside of paleotrivia and/or over-detailed technical minutiae scoured from primary publications, the content can be conveyed in a single sentence: "a single theropod is known from Washington State, represented by a single femur." --Animalparty! (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

In that case should we also delete those other two?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Merging or redirecting is preferred when there is usable content: see Alternatives to deletion. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I've gone and filed an Articles for Deletion discussion for the page. It's been sitting around for quite a while since this discussion took place with no expansion; it's a random fragment of a tyrannosaur femur without sufficient notability. Whether or not it's better described than "Capitalsaurus" is irrelevant, since the latter has a name, giving it a pass (at least per our precedent of non-synonym nomina nuda having articles). The Australian spinosaurid article easily had more notability and it was (rightfully) deleted through merging into Spinosauridae. No content in the article is important enough to warrant merging into any other particular article. On the topic, I'm curious if the article Joan Wiffen's theropod should also be thrown out, likely through a merge into New Zealand dinosaurs. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't feel that there is a pressing need to delete the article, it is not a hoax or otherwise. We have plenty of other articles that represent taxa that don't have formal names, like 'Angloposeidon', and having the article exist does not detract from the quality of the encyclopedia, it's not like there is somewhere that's an easy redirect given the uncertainty of the identity of the taxon like there was for the Australian Spinosaurid just being an easy redirect for Spinosauridae. Just because a taxon does not have a formal name does not mean it's not worthy of an article. The only reason the Australian Spinosaurid article was deleted anyway was because Bubblesorg's original article was to say the very least bare bones (He's significantly improved since then. to his credit), without any references, as wikipedia new page patrollers judge on the article quality and not the topic relevance, if the article was submitted in the state I got it in with references it would never have got AfD'd to begin with Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:30, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia has notability standards and this obviously doesn't meet it. Therefore, it should be removed. Contra your claim, this was the exact reason the spinosaur article got deleted, as can be seen by notability being more or less the entire topic of the discussion. Angloposeidon is a nomen nudum, and precedence within the WikiProject says that these get articles. Contrarily, precendence says random individual fragments with no name at all do not get their own articles (Lori being the pertinent exception among unnamed specimens, for its completeness and importance), for good reason, there's tons of them and they aren't important or protected by WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. Lack of redirect potential is irrelevant, since there's, once again, nothing of note here to begin with. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

This whole deal with non-notable fragmentary specimens reminded me to merge UM10575 into Spinosauridae#Localities. It was another spinosaurid bone fragment that had its own article created for it on the same basis as the Washington state theropod; that it was the first dinosaur bone found in X-locality (this case in Malaysia), with one user going so far as to unofficially name a new taxa by themselves "Suchodon malaytium" right on the spot just to fake notability.[6] Seems there are more of these articles than we thought, I wonder how many others are lurking around. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 21:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Obviously the discussion about the AfD was about the notability, but the reason that the article was nominated in the first place was poor quality, as the people who patrol new pages have no idea about the notability of a page as they lack detailed knowledge of the topic in question, as was the case with the Australian Spinosaurid article, the person who nominated's editing history lacks any significant Paleontological article contributions, and was largely driven by the initial article quality, which was literally two sentences with no references. Notability guidelines drive me up the wall, and are often used for idiotic ends, I'm sure you remember the attempted deletion of Victoria Arbour's wikipedia article, which you were involved in. we both know she is an important Ankylosaur researcher and very much notable for a Wikipedia article, that whole debacle was a mess, with people uninvolved in the wiki project attempting to get the article deleted under Academic notability guidelines, which arguably had misogynistic undertones, and quite frankly had not fucking clue what they were talking about, plenty of other academics like Darren Naish and Mike P. Taylor arguably fail these as well, but were never nominated. I don't even know why that particular guideline exists tbh. Guidelines are just that, not rules and we should err on the side of inclusion wherever possible.

In the interim I've changed my opinion somewhat now on the Washington state theropod, and it should be merged into Tyrannosauroidea Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC) Hemiauchenia there is not much evidence saying it is one. Or redreted it by saying a possible Tyranosaurid? --Bubblesorg (talk) 18:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes

There is an RfC regarding recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comments: Should the automatic taxobox system be the current recommended practice?. Inviting anybody who watches this page to contribute their thoughts to that thread.

WikiProject Dinosaurs is currently using automatic taxoboxes in 88.2% of project tagged articles that have any form of taxobox. Plantdrew (talk) 01:34, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Article guidelines for informal names, unnamed taxa, individual specimens, and species with unclear genus attachment

I think we need some clear guidelines for these, so it doesn't go completely off the rails, like the situation we have now with several essentially useless orphan articles. There is both a problem with stealing the thunder of formal namings, being WP:content forks, as well as it simply being too arbitrary which specimens and single species that get an article or not. We should stick to formally named taxa, and very notable specimens (such as Sue), but everything else should be covered at genus or higher level taxon articles, in my opinion. Is it time to make some formal guidelines about this so we avoid endless discussions in the future? FunkMonk (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that any taxon that has been given a name should have an article (following other guidelines like at the genus level only). In my opinion this also includes nomen dubium and nomen nudum where there are published papers or books with these named ("Angloposeidon" was in a book, as well as "Nurosaurus") but not nomen nuda that were created in other forms of media (magazines, websites, museum labels etc). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 18:40, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think the rules should be too rigid, but should depend at least partially on the completeness of the specimen, for example WDC DML 001 and "The Archbishop", clearly represent largely complete and important specimens, and have been on wikipedia for a long time and I don't think that there should a rush to delete them, given that they act as a useful collation of information on the specimens that would be difficult to find otherwise. WDC DML 001 was first announced 15 years ago, so I hardly think we're stealing their thunder at this point. However I agree that articles which revolve around indeterminate scrappy bones or teeth are not notable, and should be merged with localities of their most specific classification and the Paleobiota tables of their respective formations. However, many paleontologists even in the modern era make classifications that I personally don't find to be compelling, like Siamosaurus, which is literally just an indeterminate spinosaurid tooth and imo less notable than any of the specimens in User:Bubblesorg's articles, so in that sense what is and isn't notable is pretty arbitrary.Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I should clarify that I'm not suggesting any info should be deleted just merged elsewhere. Yes, genus nomina dubia are exempt from this discussion, they have always been considered warranted. The issue is rather dubious species with indeterminable affiliation. As for informal names, there is of course a difference between those coined for indeterminate remains, and those that have been coined for specimens that are diagnostic and will most likely become valid taxa. The problem with the latter is the claim jumping, though. We should not "steal the thunder" of upcoming valid publications, and I think even for something like Lori, it does seem a bit unethical to me at least. We need some defined cut off point for when any of these types of articles are warranted. FunkMonk (talk) 19:21, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

If a lori article didn't already exist I would have suggested merging because it is not very notable at this point. We know it will be notable, but barely anything has been said about it besides the occassional progress update etc. But the paper is coming out this year IIRC so the article can stay. The Archbishop is another article I don't think we should have, its been published on but so far most of the important details (new taxon, anatomy etc) are unpublished. I'm thinking that if the specimen hasnt been described, has been described but not named, or was named outside of a paper (valid) or a reliable non-peer-reviewed source (nomen nudum) it should not have its own article. We don't need the excess clutter that may last for decades (in cases like Lori, ~15 years, or Vouivria, ~20 years between "French Bothriospondylus" and valid naming). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Mike P. Taylor has started describing The Archbishop specimen this year. He even has a live github draft of the manuscript which goes over the specimen so I think it should stay Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah yes I forgot to say at this point I agree with it having an article, but would not recommend in the future. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:23, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

If we make guidelines now for future use, we don't necessarily have to retroactively nuke everything that has been created before. Mainly those articles that have little hope of expansion and are of little use. FunkMonk (talk) 20:35, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes I would agree to avoid retroactive application, unless the articles are really hopeless (like Washington theropod and North Carolina dromaeosaurid are, already up for deletion). What we have to do now is agree just how harsh out guidelines will be (I think I'm on the stricter side). I wrote up a few optional guidelines (wording can be changed) to see who supports what, if the wording is alright we could hold a small vote among the editors here? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

• Optional guideline one (strict):
  • "Articles should not be created for any specimens or taxa that have not been assigned a scientific name by a reliable, non-self-published source. This includes cases where a specimen is of importance but currently undescribed, described but not named, or named in a questionable source (blogs, websites etc)."
• Optional guideline two (lenient):
  • "Articles should not be created for specimens that have not been described or have no notable presence in literature or media, unless they have scientific importance (high completeness etc)."
• Optional guideline three (middle ground):
  • "Articles should not be created for specimens that have not been described, nor any specimens that are described and unnamed unless they are scientifically important (high completeness etc)."

I would also go with the strict version, but I don't think you need to add "(valid or invalid)", since it should go without saying it covers both. Or just say "not been assigned a valid scientific name". I also think you can add "taxa" alongside "specimens". FunkMonk (talk) 21:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I see an issue with the word 'described' here, both the Washington theropod and the North Carolina dromaeosaurid were described in the sense they had a whole paper each devoted to them where they were in fact given thorough descriptions, just not given a formal genus name. Even scrappy specimens can be notable if they are sufficiently diagnostic and represent an important window into a particular time and place. Also for the strict guideline I think that TetZoo, SVPOW, Mark Witton's blog, The Plos paleo community blog and the Theropoda blog can be excluded from the blog guideline considering that they are run by professional paleontologists, and therefore count as a serious scholarly source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:26, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure about paleontologist blogs simply because of their tendency to use nicknames instead of nomen nuda. If a nomen nudum is created in a blog, which would be a very rare occurence, there's a question of its notability because of how blogs are self-published. If you could suggest rewordings that'd be great. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:36, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the guideline should be based on whether the blog post was published by somebody who has published a peer-reviewed paper on the material in question, even if it wasn't given a name in the paper.Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Again, no one states these things can't be notable, we just need guidelines as how to handle them. If we agree they should not have separate article,s that does not rule out that they could be covered at higher level taxon articles. Which should of course also be explained in such guidelines. FunkMonk (talk) 21:52, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

It depends how diagnostic the material is, for example indeterminate Spinosaurid material can easily be incorporated into the Spinosauridae article, but material that is less diagnostic eg Theropoda indet, if we put all the indeterminate theropod material into the Theropoda article it would clutter it up, so there has to be some kind of balance.Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, as far as I'm concerned, we just relegate such to formation articles, if anywhere at all. The issue at hand here is how to prevent such articles from being created in the first place, and the first step is to have a guideline that discourages it. FunkMonk (talk) 22:04, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Guidelines won't stop new users who don't read them. And on the topic of formations, many dinosaurs bearing formations do not have articles, or are incredibly barebones even lacking basic information like age etc. I've made significant efforts to improve this, but I think it's important to have these formation articles to store such formation that isn't necessarily notable enough for an article in of itself.Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:12, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but it will give more familiar users carte blanche to redirect and merge such articles on sight, without the draining, drawn out process we are seeing with Bubbles' articles now. FunkMonk (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

FunkMonks strict version looks best to me. However, this would exclude important historical articles like Archaeoraptor, wouldn't it? And for the specimens, how do you measure scientific importance? High completeness is a poor criterion imho (think about the many complete Coelophysis and Plateosaurus specimens). We should not start to judge the importance or relevance of something. Instead we should simply state that such articles may be created once the respective parent article (e.g., for Archaeoraptor, the History section in Dromaeosauridae) gets too long and unbalanced, according to WP:Summary style. For indeterminate theropod material, an article or list "Fossil record of theropods" might be best. And yes, taxa named in blogs have to be excluded in any case as the latter are informal by definition (and the serious paleontologists won't name any new taxa in such a medium anyways). We could make it more waterproof by stating that for non-historical namings, only names are accepted which comply with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

As for Archaeoraptor specifically, I think the whole story surrounding it gives it inherent notability, regardless of whehter it is a real taxon or not, like Piltdown man. It isn't just any old collection of bones with an informal name attached to it, and little else to show. FunkMonk (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Strongly agree with Funkmonk on Archaeoraptor it is a sui generis case, being the most famous paleontological forgery of the modern era, with a large amount of media attention and coverage, so it is notable for that aspect and is definitely worthy of an article Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

That was not what I wanted to say. But anyway, I vote for FunkMonks guidline 1 (strict). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:30, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Those were actually Reid's proposals, but I would adjust the strict option the following way: "Articles should not be created for any specimens or taxa that have not been assigned a valid scientific name. If an example of these is deemed notable, it may be covered in a higher level taxon or formation article." The snipped stuff should go without saying, and we would want to be as concise as possible. This of course leaves us with what to do with individual specimens of named taxa and species without genus affiliation, but we can take that on later. FunkMonk (talk) 22:35, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I would largely agree with FunkMonk's amended guideline, except that even non-notable material should be covered in the formation article, provided that it is even remotely diagnostic. Like Theropoda or Sauropoda indet Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:41, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

We could also just leave notability out of it entirely. I doubt anyone will see it as their mission to add every scrap of bone ever described to a taxon/formation article anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 22:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it depends how much diagnostic material there is in the formation, as if you have loads of species identifiable taxa then putting all of the indeterminate material clutters things up but if the formation has less identifiable taxa or is all entirely undiagnostic material then it's significantly more useful.Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Abyssal has long been adding such remains to formation articles, so there is precedence for it anyway. So I wonder what should determine what goes to a higher level taxon article and what goes in a formation article... Another solution could also be to make a "list of informally named dinosaurs", and then dump them all there. Such a list could be used to keep track of them, and they could be removed from it as they get formally named. But I really haven't thought this through, just something that came to my mind as I replied. FunkMonk (talk) 23:16, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:Unnamed dinosaur taxa already exists for such taxa with articles, but a list would also be useful to add taxa without articles. Abyssals work is usually only the barest of bones though, often not even giving the age of the formation. Providing articles for all diagnostic dinosaur bearing formations with properly filled out infoboxes and formatting is my current task at the moment. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:25, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Formation articles need a lot of work in general, we still do not have a good or featured article for one. They are often either very long or too short, and seem to lack a consistent format for their lists. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 00:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

The Marcellus Formation is a good article, admittedly nothing to do with dinosaurs. I think the way that taxa are listed in the Hell Creek Formation article is the most common, with minor variations in the names of the columns depending on the formation, which I think is ok, other types of list should be converted to that format. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:26, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I would be in support of a list of dinosaur nomina nuda, containing all the articles like, say, Magulodon which get single paragraph or equivalent articles with no hope of ever getting longer. Alternatively, since the number of articles is rather small, we could just give them sections in higher-level articles. For Ornithopoda, for example, I only found five to put in the group's navbox. Whichever solution we go with, I feel it should be mostly universal for them, barring very notable ones.

One concern I have if our criterion is having a validly coined name (which is basically just an application of WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES as a guideline) is what happens to the occasional case such as Willinakaqe? It was deemed a nomina vanum, so it's not really invalid, but it's not really invalid in the traditional sense of coining either. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:05, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

We sort of have an existing example of using nomina nuda in higher taxon articles, Stegosauria#Undescribed species. I do not really like how this works because it complicated the act of writing higher ranks and does not really contribute much information, but it could work. I'm unsure how a list of nomina nuda would work, similar to the single-mention List of dinosaur genera or more like a paragraph-based Specimens of Tyrannosaurus article. We could also make a new style that is alphabetized but also has individual paragraphs on each taxon. The reference list would end up truly astronomical I hope there is no limit on the amount of those templates. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it'd be sort of in-between the two examples you gave, so similar to the new style you describe. Just listing names wouldn't accomplish anything, we have the list of genera itself for that, but there's not going to be as much to say on each as most of the sections in the Tyrannosaurus specimens article. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:53, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Lists with multiple paragraphs on each entry is routine, see for example List of characters in Jurassic Park. FunkMonk (talk) 04:28, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I just meant new in context of the WikiProject. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:37, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

There was the list of Psittacosaurus species, which looked like this[7] before it was merged, so it isn't particularly new (from 2006). It was merged because the Psittacosaurus article itself was about to get demoted, not because there was anything wrong with the list itself. FunkMonk (talk) 04:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

One article we need to decide what to do with is Joan Wiffen's theropod. No time to make further comments right now, I'll be back later to read the discussion. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Should definitely be merged, the queston is to where, which nailing down a guideline would help determine... FunkMonk (talk) 02:39, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Since our article on New Zealand dinosaurs was turned into a list back in 2016 (by Caftaric, but it makes sense since we currently have a list for every landmass), I think South Polar region of the Cretaceous is the best candidate. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 02:47, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

What's the difference between Joan Wiffen's theropod and Allosaurus robustus?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  03:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Allosaurus robustus is most likely to be Megaraptora indet, and should be noted in that articleHemiauchenia (talk) 10:10, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Suncor nodosaur, anybody? It got an immense amount of publicity (and a Wikipedia article) when it was featured in a museum exhibit a couple months before it was formally described. It is quite an exceptional specimen, and likely would merit an article on the specimen itself if there were other known specimens of the taxon (the article is substantially about the discovery and preparation of the specimen). Plantdrew (talk) 01:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I would strongly disagree that it would warrant its own article if other specimens were known. Apart from a few specimens of Tyrannosaurus and perhaps woolly mammoths, there is really nothing to say about individual specimens of a fossil prehistoric taxon that wouldn't fit neatly into the taxon articles. There was a stub about the complete Stegosaurus specimen "Sophie" until recently, but it was rightly, in my opinion, merged back into the genus article. As for the Suncor nodosaur having an article before it was named, it was also announced with big fanfare in the media long before it was named, so it is different from something like Lori or the archbishop, which have articles because, well they exist. That said, I personally think creating the article back then was premature, and it could have been dealt with at the nodosaur article. FunkMonk (talk) 02:39, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Replying to Jens Lallensack: Archaeoraptor already qualifies for an article as a nomen nudum, even if it is now recognized as a chimaera. I didn't like the idea of "scientific importance" which is why I generally excluded it from the strict guideline as too subjective. Lusotitan, I think creating a formation article for Joan Wiffens specimens (or adding to a "Geology of" if there's no formation) would be the best course of action, to which links can be redirected and the important information added. Plantdrew I agree an article was premature it seemed to be created due to the immense media outflow at one point, but even if it was undescribed for a longer amount of time the information from it could easily be added to Nodosauridae, as the specifics that wouldn't be relevant there (discovery, location etc) aren't novel, ankylosaurs are known from all over North America and the discovery information wasn't even available yet in a trustworthy manner. I fully support FunkMonk's rewording. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:50, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

FunkMonk's rewording includes the word "valid" though, which, in my opinion, would exclude nomina nuda, contra you saying that this makes Archaeoraptor qualify. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:38, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, in my original comment here, "informal name" pretty much means nomen nudum. FunkMonk (talk) 03:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I think informal names are alright but if we can agree to merge them in like is being discussed above into a list thats perfectly fine by me. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 01:33, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• So will anyone object if I add the following to the front page? "Articles should not be created for any specimens or taxa that have not been assigned a valid scientific name. Such cases should instead be covered in higher level taxon or formation articles." FunkMonk (talk) 15:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think you can go ahead and we add a note about the nomina nuda list once its created. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Now done (I also did a long overdue overhaul of the image guideline section). It seems the current text we have that recommends articles go no lower than genus level should be sufficient to discourage articles about species with dubious genus affiliation, but maybe a sentence is needed anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 17:06, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• I created List of unavailable dinosaur genera for the nomina nuda like discussed above. The article title follows the ICZN use of "available" vs "unavailable" when describing scientific names, an unavailable name is one that is not formalized yet, so I used that word instead of a longer phrase. Lusotitan FunkMonk I will be going around adding taxa to the list but a bit of help would be appreciated (even if it is simply going along as you see them and not searching them out). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 22:47, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I asked about it above, but should Willinakaqe be put in here? As a nomen vanum, it's technically not valid. The article looks a bit long, but cut out the phylogeny section since it's invalid and ignore all the templates and the lead and we're left with just the discovery and naming section, which is pretty in-line with a nomen nudum article. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 23:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

From what I can tell a nomen vanum is roughly equivalent with a nomen dubium, not a nomen nudum, so it should have its own article. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I've added the five ornithopod nomina nuda we have articles, but one of them, Heilongjiangosaurus, had "see also" information (a DML message). In this case it's pretty unimportant (just saying it's a nomen nudum and it could maybe be Charonosaurus, but if there was a more useful one, what would we do in this case? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

As I've been going through I've been looking at the references and see also information and expanding/fixing the paragraphs, so if its important perhaps add it as a reference to the important information. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:14, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I can't help but notice there's a picture of "Nurosaurus" but the N section is empty, also, doesn't List of dinosaur genera already cover all of this?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:16, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

List of dinosaur genera is just an index of names, this is to contain all the information on nomen nuda as opposed to giving each their own short stub articles. Special cases like Archaeoraptor still get their own pages too. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:21, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Reminder to FunkMonk to remove the bolding from around the taxon name when adding it to the list and a request to Extrapolaris to add the content of an article to the list if you're going to redirect it, instead of just redirecting and leaving someone else to dig through the history and find it. Accordingly, redirect to the section title so we don't have to make a second edit to each page. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, seems I missed all of this latest commentary, but good work so far, guys! I've added some furhter issues to the talk page (name of the article, what to add). FunkMonk (talk) 15:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Paleoart

Does anyone know if File:Isisaurus DB.jpg is entirely accurate? There aren't any tags but the same sauropods were removed from the background of File:Rajasaurus narmadensis DB.jpg for being incorrect, and the legs look like they're bending the wrong way   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

It should probably get the tag, see this SVPOW blog post:[8] By the way, queries like this may be better suited at WP:DINOART. FunkMonk (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Nobody knows, certainly nobody has a better reconstruction, as it was traced over one of Jaime A Headden's skeletals, There seem to be issues with the scale bar and the actual measurements in the paper, as well as skeletal incompleteness.Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

The image showing only the sauropods was updated after the same sauropods were removed from the Rajasaurus image. Not sure if they're otherwise accurate or not. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 20:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Its worth noting that Headden's skeletal was done two decades ago, but nothing better seems to have been published since, If somebody wanted to do a better reconstruction they'd need to do it fresh from the original paper again, preferably using the given measurements of element lengths rather than scale bars. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Three simultaneous dinosaur FAC nominations

We currently have three dinosaurs nominated for FAC simultaneously, which I think is the first time in the project's history (Oxalaia, Gallimimus, Cetiosauriscus). So go ahead and review, so we can get them all through the hoops! FunkMonk (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh I forgot Oxalaia was currently FAC hahaha. Cetiosauriscus has taken a lot of work since it was quickpassed as a GA (I dislike quickpasses because then I have no idea what to fix), and it probably has the most work left to do but I think it is close enough. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:00, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Once two of them pass (and Oxalaia should be passing soon, it's got obvious support and no outstanding criticisms) we'll be at 50 FAs. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 23:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Only 2500 left to go   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:58, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

So now we're at 50, two of them promoted the same day, I think this might also be a first? Also, we have had more FAs promoted so far than all of last year combined... FunkMonk (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah, pardon me, I've been very busy during the past few weeks, so I've kinda been on a semi-wikibreak. I'm very happy to hear that Oxalaia got promoted! I'm quite proud of the work I put into that article, and enjoyed taking my first crack at the FA process. I definitely learned some things during the review that should help me write/expand more articles. Glad to see Gallimimus passed as well, so props to FunkMonk for helping get that one through! ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 05:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations with Oxalaia, it should be a good springboard to other articles. Went very smoothly for a first FA, a good example of how most issues can be ironed out already at peer review and GAN. Maybe we should use the momentum to get Brachiosaurus ready? FunkMonk (talk) 05:18, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

This is kindof the exact opposite of Cetiosauriscus haha. GA fail, GA quickpass and after a lot of work FAN. Lets just hope I didn't jump the gun. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd love to help with Brachio but unfortunately I know next to nothing about sauropods and I've got too many things going on irl and with studies to take on "extra projects" like that, so for now I'll continue to focus on spinosaurid articles. My next milestones atm are to get Ostafrikasaurus and Siamosaurus to GA and then nominate the latter for FAC after a peer review. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 07:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The FAC will also need reviewers, so it is of course best some are left to do that, because nominators of course can't review... Looking forward to a shiny Spinosauridae, last that was attempted was for Tyrannosauridae, but of course many new members of the family have been named since... As for Cetiosauriscus, as long as we can get most issues ironed out before the non-dinosaur project reviewers arrive, it should be ok. FunkMonk (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

You guys ready for another one with Rajasaurus?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:50, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Will have a look soon. Lucky that someone took a photo of the reconstructed skull in an Indian museum recently, good timing... FunkMonk (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Supersaurus Size

The Supersaurus article currently lists its length at 42 m, added with this edit. Is this correct? It's said 33 to 34 m for quite awhile, so I'm dubious about it. I do not have access to the source, unfortunately. Can anyone determine which is correct? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 19:41, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

No it's not its available free on researchgate on page 541 it says 33-34 which is what the previous edit said, feel free to revert. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:46, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realize that since there's no link in the article. I have reverted it back to 34 m. Could someone add the link to the citation? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 19:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

The change was reverted to a revision by a WelcometoJurassicPark sockpuppet, but if the content is correct then there would not be a problem. 128.189.202.100 (talk) 23:26, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

As indeed the person who reverted the sockpuppets edit was also a sockpuppet, this time of Raymondskie99, it's sockpuppets all the way down Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it does appear to be quite a complicated history, with a sock accusing another sock of being a sock. By the way, thanks for adding the link. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

"Choyrodoninae"

In the creation of the Choyrodon page, an editor created a taxonomy template for the non-existent subfamily "Choyrodontinae". How are template subpages filed for deletion? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Take it to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. In the interim, I've commented out the code in the template and have added it to Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates (really should go through and clear out everything in that category). Plantdrew (talk) 19:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The editor is a likely sockpuppet of Ozarcusmapesae and these edits are consistent. 128.189.200.5 (talk) 01:54, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Ugh, wasn't this new sock already banned? Why have the paleo articles suddenly become a magnet for sockpuppets recently? That Hungarian size queen and the hoaxer keep coming back. FunkMonk (talk) 02:34, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Not sure if the editor is a sock or not, but they're trouble either way. Adding copyrighted images to assorted articles (including the same one to Bonapartesaurus and Willinakaqe...), outright copying the Choyrodon paper's entire description section, giving the image of it he uploaded a nonsense title, and making stuff up outright like Choyrodontinae and a sister relationship between it and Altirhinus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 02:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't get the impression they're acting entirely in bad faith, I bet the nonsense name of the file was just the default name and he didn't bother to change it. I get the impression that they are more acting stupidly more than maliciously, given their previous edits consisting of a mixture of legit edits and vandalism, they give off the impression that the user is definitely an immature child who doesn't know how to edit wikipedia properly, we should at least try to get them to talk first. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Statement on individual species articles

Right now, the "Which articles should be created" section contains the following:

Individual species should be discussed in their respective genus articles, but in some cases (eg. Edmontosaurus annectens) species which are known to possibly belong to different genera than the one they are currently assigned to may be kept separate, to make it easier to move information once such a revision happens.

The information here is all correct, and the Edmontosaurus species articles are the main examples of separated species articles, but said example does no apply to this case. There's no debate about the monophyly of the genus. So it's saying one valid thing and giving an example of another valid thing. Could a better example be found? The only one that comes to mind is "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

A much more relevant example would be Hypsibema missouriensis. Edmontosaurus is more an example of an article becoming too long if it isn't split. Personally, I don't think there should be exceptions, but in these two specific cases, I'm not sure what else to do. I don't think "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis should be separate, by the way, and we need some guideline for cases like that. FunkMonk (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think perhaps Megalosaurus given that many theropod remains were assigned to this genus in the first half of the 20th century like Megalosaurus dunkeri Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Question is whether that should be separate, though. FunkMonk (talk) 20:02, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

It absolutely should. The tooth and most of the material dubiously assigned to the genus is clearly not megalosaurian, and having all of the indeterminate material assigned to the genus in the article would clutter it, and distract from the discussion of the actual dinosaur, M. bucklandii as it was found to be all the material from the Taynton Limestone formation probably belonged to the species. it should probably be discussed in the taxonomy section of the Megalosaurus article and perhaps a list article of "list of material dubiously assigned to Megalosaurus" or similar. It was such a mess when this got resolved about a decade ago they were seriously considering making Megalosaurus a nomen dubium.Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

That's a general issue with wastebasket taxa, though, and not unique to Megalosaurus. The issue here, as with Sinopliosaurus fusuiensis, is when the species is dubious, it will never be assigned to any genus with certainty. There are probably dozens of dinosaur species like that, and if we start making articles for them all, well, I don't think that would be a good idea. But if we keep those two articles without any guidelines, we're setting a precedent that would green light more of such articles. FunkMonk (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

"Sinopliosaurus" could easily be touched on in the Spinosauridae article. For Megalosaurus, we could consider a "Species of Megalosaurus" article, given how damn many of them there are and that Allosaurus already gets one (of questionable GA status...). On the topic, I still advocate for a separate article for phylogenetically unstable Hypacrosaurus stebingeri. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Since the Hypacrosaurus article itself is so short, I'm not sure what the gain would be, though. As long as everyone still uses the name Hypacrosaurus for the species, there isn't really a controversy or problem for our purposes, unlike for example the Syntarsus/Megapnosaurus/Coelophyis situation. And now we also have a similar issue with Heyuannia/Ajancingenia. Hypsibema missouriensis at least has Parrosaurus to go to... FunkMonk (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Since the Hypacrosaurus article itself is so short, I'm not sure what the gain would be, though. As long as everyone still uses the name Hypacrosaurus for the species, there isn't really a controversy or problem for our purposes, unlike for example the Syntarsus/Megapnosaurus/Coelophyis situation. And now we also have a similar issue with Heyuannia/Ajancingenia. FunkMonk (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Splitting based off of taxonomic uncertainty is based off just that, uncertainty, not length of the article. Not to mention it could easily be made significantly longer if anybody ever got around to writing it properly. Not using a new name isn't, in my eyes, an issue here - it's still agreed it may well be en entirely separate entity. Regarding Heyuannia, I feel that merge was a poor choice, given it was just one study that had just come out advocating for the split. Going off the conclusion of one paper like that is ridiculous. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:07, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree on Ajancingenia. But on Hypacrosaurus, at this stage, we can't be sure if the solution won't simply be that Olorotitan is simply sunk into Hypacrosaurus, while the other species then retain their names. That could happen, if Ajancingenia/Syntarsus/Ugrunaluuk is anything to go by. Which also makes a split even more premature. Better to wait until we even know whether it will be split. FunkMonk (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Anyway, if we agree on Ajancingenia, should we go ahead and revert the merge? Under the name Ajancingenia, per Delapparentia. I suppose Hypacrosaurus isn't an important issue until someone starts working on the genus article anyway, so I'll drop it for now. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

We are only two, though, might be best to bring it up on the article's talk page. 01:13, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

For most wastebasket taxa though, the type species is almost always a nomen dubium, which isn't the case for Megalosaurus. As for "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis, if more diagnostic spinosaurid material were to come out of the Napan Formation, and a new species were named, it would not be unreasonable to have the species as fusuiensis. It's not unprecedented, given the fact that Suchosaurus is almost certainly synonymous with Baryonyx, and there has even been serious discussion about changing the name of the genus to Suchosaurus given that it has taxonomic priority by over a century, despite it only being based on teeth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Problem with both is that spinosaur teeth are not diagnostic to genus level, so these synonymisations will probably never be accepted, and have been rejected at least in the case of Suchosaurus. Likewise, Suchomimus will probably never be sunk into Cristatusaurus, which is likewise udiagnostic. FunkMonk (talk) 01:13, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I think for most formations though (aside from the Kem Kem beds) there isn't a reason to believe that there is more than one spinosaurid taxon within the formation, given the limited possibility of niche partitioning in such an already specialized role. If teeth found on the new taxon were identical in morphology to the isolated teeth, and a morphometric study of spinosaurid teeth found across the formation with a large enough sample size to indicate that there was only one spinosaurid taxon in the formation, then the teeth could be reasonably referred to the taxon, and the dubious genus merged into the new article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

If that was a reason alone for synonymisation, Triceratops would be Agathaumas, though (there are plenty of other examples). In practice, this argument doesn't seem to be used when the senior synonym is undiagnostic. FunkMonk (talk) 14:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

What i was trying to say is if the senior synonym is undiagnostic but can reliably be inferred to belong to another diagnostic taxon based on significant evidence from morphology, number of taxa in the formation etc. Then the senior synonym can be merged into the diagnostic taxon. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

But do you know of cases where this has been done and become generally accepted? The very nature of undiagnostic specimens means they cannot be assigned to diagnostic taxa. And you can never know how many similar animals once existed in a given place, and even if you think you can (Jack Horner), others will most likely disagree. Therefore, we cannot take any sides here and merge undiagnostic taxa into younger, diagnostic taxa. This simply isn't done in the literature, which is what we have to reflect. FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

We might be veering off in the wrong direction here, we cannot assume synonymy at all unless there are published sources to follow. Publications nowadays probably will not synonymize these taxa unless they can be found to be diagnostic (with enamel studies or whatnot I don't know), so (if?) until that happens we can't do anything here about merging articles. I think a Species of Megalosaurus article would be very useful and could remove some of the clutter from the Megalosaurus page, while also getting rid of some unecessary pages (Unless we want to rename the list to "List of unnamed dinosaurs" and include all the species there). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 15:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Note also that the massive "formerly assigned species" section in Elasmosaurus was accepted at FAC as part of the genus article. So I don't think covering them at the genus article would be a problem. FunkMonk (talk) 15:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

This happened with Tyrannosaurus with Manospondylus gigas, as they relocated the M. gigas type locality and found additional bones making it diagnostic to T.rex, technically making it a senior synonym, I don't think that the ICZN has ruled on it though. Undoubtedly they would give Tyrannosaurus protected status, definitely agree with IJreid on the species of Megalosaurus should be created, noting the only valid species to be M. bucklandii. It would be quite difficult to track down all the taxa dubiously named Megalosaurus though, given that most publications from that era are not easily accessible. Also Funkmonk there weremany more taxa dubiously assigned to Megalosaurus than elasmosaurus, and to give them the same treatment as the elasmosaurus article would easily make up over half the articles length, I personally think this is better it is given a broad-strokes treatment in the main genus article, and then a "Taxonomy of megalosaurus" article which goes really in depth into all the material dubiously assigned to the genus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

If someone is going to write such a massive Megalosaurus species article, by all means do it, but if it will just be a duplicate of what's already in Megalosaurus, I see little point. As for Manospondylus, I think there is the added issue of it being a nomen oblitum[9], a "forgotten" name, so even if it was diagnostic, it doesn't threaten Tyrannosaurus anyway. But even if it did, it represents an extremely rare case where more material has been found from an undiagnostic specimen. FunkMonk (talk) 15:40, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, of course it would be significantly longer than the current section, that's the whole point. It'd be able to cover every single individual dubious species. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 16:26, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but there is often a very long distance between intentions and results here. Someone has to do the work. FunkMonk (talk) 16:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I definitely have too much going on currently to be able to spend the time writing such an article. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:54, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

So what's the consensus on what to do with "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis? I have returned to working on my Siamosaurus draft and would like to know how to proceed with this, it seems reasonable to me that "Sinopliosaurus" should be merged with Siamosaurus. Given that it is an Asian spinosaurid, a tooth taxon, it was deemed closely related to if not identical with Siamosaurus, and has not been properly named (to my knowledge); so it should be discussed in a similar fashion to the other Siamosaurus-like spinosaurid teeth I include in this draft. But so far the issue seems a bit muddy, due to article guideline concerns and all, so I pretty much have no clue what to do next. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Has it been suggested in the literature? If so, has this met with acceptance? If it's merely a nomen dubium from the same place we have no grounds to merge the two subjects. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:10, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

There is still the issue of whether it should even have an article or not. The long standing convention is to cover dubious species at genus or higher level taxon articles. This is how most such species are treated, and there is little good reason to have a couple of exceptions that are hardly more notable than any other such species. The question is just where to merge it, Spinosauridae would be an obvious contender. FunkMonk (talk) 05:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Although "Sinopliosaurus" could be used in the Spinosauridae article as an example of the many uncertain tooth taxa as well as the tendency of spinosaurid teeth to get misidentified as those of aquatic reptiles, most of the information from the description paper is IMO more relevant in the Siamosaurus article. Given how it will go into detail on the various Asian spinosaurid teeth deemed similar to Siamosaurus, as well as their classification issues and geographic relevance. I say we redirect & merge it there once the draft is finished perhaps? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 06:58, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Most dubious species don't get articles since no species usually get their own articles. But there's no genus to put this in, so it makes perfect sense to me that this should have its own article. On the topic, since the synonymy of Angaturama with Irritator has been questioned, that should also by precedent have an article. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 11:09, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there is no genus, therefore it should be put in the family article, the closest higher level container it can be associated with. As for Angaturama/Irritator, it does seem to have become iffy, but we don't actually have any guidelines for how to treat splits and synonymies based on a single paper. It is impossible to interpret if there is a scientific consensus based on that alone. FunkMonk (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we should be conservative and keep them together for now, if a different researcher also disputes the synonomy in a new paper then a new article should be created Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

In that case we have to bring back a seperate Ajancingenia article since it's only been proposed by one study. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd support that, especially since it seems the synonymy was just to get rid of a name no one likes... Similar with what happened to Megapnosaurus. FunkMonk (talk) 13:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Spinophorosaurus, Chebsaurus and Archaeodontosaurus lack automatic taxobox

I'm sure that almost all dinosaur articles at this point have been updated to use the automatic taxobox system, however I have found three of them who somehow have managed to elude updating. Can someone go and update these articles. Thanks Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Don't know how to do it, so hopefully someone else will, but after you linked it, I realised the user who uploaded the photos of Archaeodontosaurus is the person the species was named after, haha... FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

His username on commons is also User:Archaeodontosaurus Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I've fixed all three as well as Barapasaurus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 14:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that, much appreciated. Cheers, Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

On second glance the problem seems to be much more widespread than this, many of the basal sauropod taxa on the sauropod template and some of the higher sauropod taxa still lack automatic taxobox. Compiling a list:

Chinshakiangosaurus, Gongxianosaurus, Isanosaurus, Protognathosaurus, Sanpasaurus, Ohmdenosaurus, Zizhongosaurus, Algoasaurus, Amygdalodon, Ferganasaurus, Qinlingosaurus, Cardiodon, Losillasaurus, Neosodon, Rayososaurus, Zapalasaurus, Limaysaurus, Abrosaurus, Dinodocus, Campylodoniscus, Iuticosaurus, Mongolosaurus, Bruhathkayosaurus, Macrurosaurus, Erketu, Qiaowanlong, Tangvayosaurus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

There are 143 articles with a WikiProject Dinosaurs banner and a manual taxobox. You can see them all here. I went through them all a couple months ago, and converted maybe a couple dozen to automatic taxoboxes. I don't know much about dinosaur taxonomy, and the ones I didn't change all had some issue that made me think it was better for somebody more knowledgable to check the taxonomic hierarchy presented in the taxobox. Most frequently, the issue was that a genus wasn't placed to family (or was uncertainly placed). That may represent our best state of knowledge about the taxon in question, but I don't know that for sure. Second most common issue was taxa formerly, but not currently considered to be dinosaurs; I have no idea where to find good current classifications for diverse paleontological taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Sometimes I use fossilworks/Paleodb, which is sometimes inaccurate or do a search for the most recent article mentioning the taxon in google scholar, usually contains the most up to date interpretation of the taxon in question. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Some surprising names in there, I would have thought Aquilops and Fukuiraptor would've been upgraded by now. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Usually I just go wherever its placed in the templates and higher-level clade articles. Sometimes they're have a taxonomy sub-template but just not the taxobox that uses it, which avoids the issue altogether unless it's incorrect itself. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Archiving problems

I was looking for archive 27, because some discussions weren't present in archive 26, and it seems it is listed under a different system than the rest of the archives. The others are at pages like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 26, but 27 is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archives/ 27, and therefore not listed on the talk page here. Anyone know what to do so it will be synced up? FunkMonk (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

There’s also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archives/ 26 which is completely different Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 26   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:29, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Ouch, what a mess... Maybe there are more parallel archives like that. Anyone who has a hang on these things? Maybe IJReid? FunkMonk (talk) 20:34, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Ugh theres no indication of exactly whats wrong, following the documentation this should work fine. I'll manually fix the other archives. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:03, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Let's hope it doesn't derail again... FunkMonk (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Tiouraren Formation Thyreophoran

I randomly happened to come across this SVP abstract from 2010 entitled A basal Thyreophoran (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Tiouraren Formation of Niger (page 150A-151A), by Paul Sereno et al. Has anything been written about this taxon since? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

There's this document from 2017 that says the remains "have not yet been described in detail," so probably not   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Shuangbaisaurus is a probable junior synonym of Sinosaurus

According the Andrea Cau of the Theropoda Blog, Shuangbaisaurus is a probable junior synonym of Sinosaurus and the autapomorphies cited in the paper are likely due to taphonomic distortion of the skull, given that this is not in a peer reviewed published paper, should this be added to the article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:59, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, once he formally publishes that, we can act on it. Blogs are not valid sources for original research ideas. FunkMonk (talk) 15:17, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

• A rather more pressing synonymy issue is that proposed in this new paper:[10] So we have the following proposal: Nanosaurus agilis Marsh, 1877 = Nanosaurus rex Marsh, 1877 Laosaurus consors Marsh, 1894b Othnielia rex (Marsh, 1877) Galton, 1977 Drinker nisti Bakker and others, 1990 Othnielosaurus consors (Marsh, 1894b) Galton, 2007. Yikes... FunkMonk (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty that will have to go to the ICZN, and we shouldn't change the articles until they respond Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:50, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the ICZN is only in charge of the validity of names themselves, but synonymy is decided by scientific consensus. But yeah, one paper without responses does not make a consensus, so we should deifnitely not do any mass mergings, likewise, Stygimoloch and Dracorex are not going away any time soon. FunkMonk (talk) 18:54, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

What I was more thinking is that the ICZN might give Othnielosaurus conserved name status, but given that it's not an iconic taxon who knows at this point Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

You mean because its type specimen is better preserved? I think someone would have to make a petition for that first. FunkMonk (talk) 19:20, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Nanosaurus doesn't have as bad a holotype as most people assume. A dentary, ilium, femur, tibia and fibula is better than valid taxa like Callovosaurus and Burianosaurus. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:22, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Burianosaurus was a weird one, I remember reading the paper and it came off to me as they were trying as hard as possible to make out that it was not a rhabdodont (which is the obvious candidate given the time and place) so that it was more notable, despite them noting how similar the femur was to that of Zalmoxes and to me it looks like the specimens more basal position on their cladogram was more likely to due to the incomplete nature of the specimen Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah for now there's no reason at all to merge, the authors have been lumping Uteodon and Cumnoria into species of Camptosaurus for a few years now and we've still got articles for all three (none of which reflect this...). Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:29, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

In any case, it should be mentioned in said articles, though we shouldn't go on a merging spree. It seems Carpenter and co. have been pointing out some kind of chimaera issue with Uteodon, which should be mentioned. At least the synonymies have been proposed in actual scientific articles, we should never rely on blogs for stuff like that. FunkMonk (talk) 01:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Surprised they've tried to merge Cumnoria, given that it's from another continent entirely Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration banner

I noticed that the banner states:

"The current WikiProject Dinosaurs collaboration article is Brachiosaurus.

The last article for collaboration was: Apatosaurus.

Feel free to cast your vote for next month's article."

However, it does not seem that we are really using "months" as a time limit, and instead we just do it until it's done. Should the collaboration template be changed from "next months's" to "the next?" I'll make this change if it is approved. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 15:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the wording you've suggested works for our purposes. Might want a third opinion. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 15:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 17:16, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, best to reflect current realities... FunkMonk (talk) 17:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I have changed it. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 17:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Reference issue

I was just adding some of the final touches on the Discovery and naming section on my Siamosaurus draft[11] when a warning showed up telling me I'm citing a "predatory open access journal", which appears to be this one[12], so I switched to another website for the source (researchgate in this case[13] and it continues to display the same message on the edit history[14]. Can anyone tell me what this means? I almost ignored it but if this article's going to be GA and especially FA then I need to know the sources I'm using are trustworthy, thanks.

It is the journal itself that's supposedly the problem (see Predatory open-access publishing). I think it's a bit ridiculous, but look at the fight I had over it at the Smilodon article here and the section below:[15] No one brought it up during FAC, but you might want to find another citation to back up the material... FunkMonk (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Found another reference for the statigraphy of the Khok Kruat Group[16] which was cited in the previous journal, looks like I can avoid the problem this way. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:26, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Nice, then you'll be sure to avoid problems down the line. FunkMonk (talk) 04:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Theropod size estimates, etc.

This book[17], which contains information on theropods as well as a massive table of size estimates, appears to have been brought up here before. I've taken a look at it (I know a good amount of Spanish) and the authors seem to know their stuff, from the looks of it a ton of research went into putting this together. Unfortunately, they didn't cite nor have they been cited by any sources, and they look to have little in the way of strong academic profiles. Altogether it probably doesn't match the criteria for a reliable source, but I just thought I'd put it out here if anyone else wants to take a look. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 01:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Should we be worrying about changing "T-Rex" to "T. rex"?

Should we be consistently changing "T-Rex" to "T. rex" whenever we encounter it in article text (e.g. here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_coloration#Tyrannosaurus )?

Or at this point should we just throw up our hands and declare that "T-Rex" has become a "folk taxon"?

(Just as we don't have to change "a herd of mustangs" to "a herd of Equus ferus caballus", or "three rhinos" to "three Ceratotherium simum".)

- 189.122.52.73 (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

In scientific dinosaur articles (such as the one linked), we should certainly spell it the correct way. But I don't think we have to worry much about articles outside our project scope. FunkMonk (talk) 20:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Arden et al. have published a paper about the Spinosauridae

I think you should all take a look at it; it "rewrites" the clade pretty much. I will edit the Spinosauridae article. Aquatic adaptation in the skull of carnivorous dinosaurs (Theropoda: Spinosauridae) and the evolution of aquatic habits in spinosaurus is the title. Richard.sutt (talk) 21:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't really rewrite the clade, it merely established that the North African spinosaurines form a monophyletic clade (with a pretty awful tree held together by geographic characters, but deleting those and a few taxa retains the tribe). So we'll need to update cladograms, add Spinosaurini to the Spinosauridae taxobox and taxonomy templates for the two genera within it, and add some things to palaeobiology sections.

It further solidifies the morph A/morph B dichotomy from Kem Kem, though, and I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do here. The referral Spinosaurus and Sigilmassasaurus respectively is only tentative (morphotype A was even coded seperately from the holotype for the phylogenetic analysis), so I'm not sure how good an idea it is to throw them into the articles for those genera. Should they get their own section in the Kem Kem Formation and/or Spinosauridae article(s)? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

As long as we clarify it is tentative, it should be fine to mention in the genus articles. But we don't have to make major changes before these ideas solidify. FunkMonk (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, they should definitely be put somewhere. At this point they're arguably better understood and useful taxa than Spinosaurus itself. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

The problem is though is that with every paper on taxonomy that is published, it is always felt necessary to change the taxobox to the most current paper, the issue with that most taxonomies are highly unstable, and change with the addition/removal of taxa, characters etc. The subtaxonomy of Spinosauridae is highly unstable, and differers considerably from paper to paper. I think it should just be a straight list of the taxa, like you edited the taxobox of Dinosauria to, until the taxonomy is more stable Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I feel the placement of two taxa within or outside of a tribe is a minor enough thing to just stick with the most recent stuff. The taxonomy of Dinosauria itself is far more important and impactful, and there's a lot more back and forth disagreement. Spinosaurus itself is in Spinosaurini no matter what now that the tribe is coined, even it turns out monotypic in the future, so putting that in its taxobox isn't taking any sides. To my knowledge this is the first time Sigilmassasaurus has been included in an actual phylogenetic analysis, for its part, which would lend credit to it being reasonable to list it as a spinosaurin - no alternative suggestion exists. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:41, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Could someone site the article for me? Richard.sutt (talk) 00:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll get the citation done, but also Sigilmassasaurus was included in the phylogeny of Evers et al 2015 I believe, where Spinosauridae was one polytomy. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:48, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• This study recovered Ichthyovenator as a spinosaurine. Should I update my scale diagram to look more Irritator-ish than Baryonyx-ish? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:18, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Again, I don't think there are good reasons to wholesale change everything on the basis of a single paper that will likely be contradicted by the next spinosaurid paper. Better to just keep images of fragmentary spinosaurs as generic as possible for now. FunkMonk (talk) 15:09, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Could someone add a cladogram for Arden et al., 2018 to the Spinosauridae page. My edit history doesn't indicate I have skill in that area. Richard.sutt (talk) 05:07, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll get on it, for future reference a requests page exists: WP:TREEREQ. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 15:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

• Anyone who can send me the Arden paper for use in Baryonyx? The Scihub upload doesn't work anymore... FunkMonk (talk) 05:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

National Museum of Brazil fire

• Bad news for spinosaurs, the holotypes of Angaturama and Oxalaia, among many others have apaprently just been destroyed in a fire: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-fire-museum/rios-200-year-old-national-museum-hit-by-massive-fire-idUKKCN1LJ00C According to a DML comment: "Including holotypes of the theropod Santanaraptor, Angaturama and Oxalaia. And the pterosaurs Tapejara, Anhanguera and Thalassodromeus. All, now, consumed and distroyed." The article doesn't say any such thing, so one can hope... FunkMonk (talk) 01:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh my god that's horrible news... Fortunately there were no casualties, but still over 20 million historical and natural artifacts are stored in that museum. It is a sad day for Brazilians and for science. Hopefully there are items left to salvage when the blaze gets put out... or it will be like Stromer's Spinosaurus holotype all over again. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

From what I've heard the Angaturama and Thalassdromeus holotypes actually weren't there and are safe. The list I've heard so far is: Oxalaia, Irritator's undescribed postcrania postcrania, Santanaraptor (which had soft tissues), Maxakalisaurus, Caupedactylus, Brasileodactylus, Anhanguera, Tupuxuara, Tapejara, Cearadactylus, Gondwanatitan, the giant Tropeognathus specimen that inspired the WWD episode, and Aymberedactylus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, with Santanaraptor, it could be like the loss of Attenborosaurus (a substantial skeleton with skin impressions). And as for Irritator's postcranium, we may very well never know what it looked like... it sure was lucky that Angaturama and Thalassodromeus were away. Some of these pterosaurs I hadn't even heard of before, and now the first thing that I learn about them is that they are destroyed. How often does this sort of thing happen? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think stuff like this has happened since WW2, really... No one seems to know what exactly has been destroyed yet, but it has been stated on the DML that there will be information in the coming days. There is supposedly also another building housing specimens which is safe, so there's a chance... Strange if Oxalaia has been destroyed mere days after it was shown on the front page here. FunkMonk (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken as I was also when initially reading the updates, from what I gather the vertebrate specimens, which I'm pretty sure means extant vertebrates were housed in a different section, all of the paleontological including vertebrate specimens were apparently housed in the main museum destroyed by fire. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, most we know so far is this from a DML comment, so not enough to say anything yet on specific dinosaur pages: "All palaeontological collections were in the main building, some at the exhibition and most of them at the collections. So far, we do not know how many specimens are lost or if we could recover some of them from the collections where specimens were a bit more "safe", but things are looking extremely bad. The fire lasted more than 10 hours and the fireman came too late. We will inform in the following days." FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

According to Mark Witton, some pterosaur specimens from other museums were temporarily on loan, so the damage could be even greater. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Reading the background section at National Museum of Brazil fire is extremely sad. I guess the Brazilian government wasted all its money on the olympics... But no one will care about that in a hundred years, unlike these collections. FunkMonk (talk) 16:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

There are other collections at risk around the world too, I know that in the UK due to austerity the Isle of Wight council is in talks to sell of the Dinosaur Isle Museum to a commercial company make it a dinosaur theme park, despite it being the home of the globally important fossils from the Wessex formation, including Neovenator, Eotyrannus etc. and then it would lose its museum accreditation, making the collections inaccessible to researchers like the Barnes High Sauropod is. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:11, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The list of specimens that were there is too long for me to list off here, so I copied the one I've seen into a pastebin: [18]. As mentioned about a bunch of specimens were on loan from MTC for research, so Thalassodromeus was indeed there along with several others not reported as being in danger last night. It's possible the fire dind't get underground to the collections but I won't get my hopes up. Irritator's postcrania and the Oxalaia holotype had their originals on display so there's no hope for them at all .Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The list is missing most of the dinosaurs. FunkMonk (talk) 18:10, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: Any further updates from the DML?. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

No, there is some discussion in the Facebook Tetrapod Zoology group, but seems no one knows what has survived or not. But the fact that the Bendegó meteorite is intact gives me a bit of hope... Maybe some fossils (being rock) can withstand the fire? FunkMonk (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Apparently some of the paleo cabinets may be intact, but are inaccessible due to rubble, this says nothing of the condition of what's inside the cabinets though Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Fingers crossed! Here is some footage of the surviving Bendegó meteorite (edit: apparently of something else):[19] FunkMonk (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Sad, and I guess this happens more frequently than one would assume, although not in this dimension. I remember the arson fire which affected many of the Europasaurus fossils in Germany in 2003. Most survived the fire, but one beautiful specimen ("Hanna"), maybe the best specimen there was (as it was partly articulated), got destroyed by the water of the fire fighters, which caused it to cool down too rapidly. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Ach, never heard of that. Maybe could be add to the Europasaurus article if there are sources for it... I also just noticed we have a List of lost, damaged, or destroyed dinosaur specimens, which sorely needs updates... FunkMonk (talk) 17:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Just added the info to the Europasaurus article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Could you also add it to the list linked above? I added some info from Holtz's PDF, it seems that Podokesaurus was also destroyed in a museum fire. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 20:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Could the specimen not be glued back together? Were the fragments too fine? I know in the case of Dubreuillosaurus, a bulldozer went over the specimen before it was collected, meaning the authors had to painstakingly glue back several thousand of 1-10 cm sized fragments. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Latest update for those not subscribed to the DML: "The state of the palaeontological collections is still uncertain because we do not know what condition it’s all in the boxes. Orlando Grillo, one of the curators of the vertebrate palaeontology collections, said what he knows from the few people who have been able to go inside the department to assess the situation is that our compactor boxes are standing, with a lot of rubble on top (from the upper two floors that collapsed), but they are partially distorted by weight, partially burned out and some are tilted. The part that houses the holotypes is apparently also standing, but there is a part of the compactor boxes on the part of reptiles destroyed. Some other metal boxes housing examples of mesosaurs, turtles, and pterosaurs are also apparently entire. But that's all you can say for now. Let me insist: we do not know how the parts are inside boxes. It may be all sprayed and we will only know when we actually have access to the boxes. Keep in mind that the rubble that fell over the top contains collections of upper floors that need to be carefully removed before accessing the vertebrate palaeontology collections. In addition, some of the catalogue books are lost, but the curators have a digital collection database with information from the entire collection, including its location in the boxes. We are cheering for the best, but we have to wait… keep calm and carry on." FunkMonk (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

That's very good news, especially for a fire that severe. I heard the libraries in the linguistics section for example were not so lucky, since they were more exposed and of course more flammable. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 22:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Shortest dinosaur article?

Proa valdearinnoensis is at 2 sentences, I think the shortest dinosaur article on wikipedia. Any new dinosaur taxon that comes out today has at least 4x the number of words that this article has, does anyone want to expand it? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

The original description is freely available, so should be easy for anyone interested to expand it. I wonder which other article will become the shortest once Proa is expanded, hehe... FunkMonk (talk) 18:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and did a little bit of expansion. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 19:21, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Is there a reason the species name is in the title if there’s only one species?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:49, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

It's because Proa is a type of sailboat, which is clearly the more notable use for the average wikipedia user, usually using the binomial is typical for scenarios like this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:51, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Why not just use "Proa (dinosaur)"? Like for Yi (dinosaur)? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 20:12, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

It was originally that, but IJReid moved it December last year, citing guidelines, so maybe Yi should be moved to Yi qi? EDIT: it turns out Yi Qi is also a disambig page, so it can't be changed to that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, if the generic name is pre-occupied by another article, and the genus is monotypic, the full binomial is to be used, not Genus (dinosaur). Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:21, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Which is for example why we have Gastonia (dinosaur), the genus contains two species. In the unlikely event that Proa gets an assigned species, it should be moved to Proa (dinosaur). FunkMonk (talk) 03:52, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

High quality content subsection

I just added a new section (with this[20] edit) under "Article alerts and statistics" listing our Featured articles, lists, and pictures; and our Good articles. I thought it'd be a nice addition, similar "showcases" are also seen in other WikiProjects. My formatting might not be the best so anyone's welcome to tweak it if so. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 01:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if we can somehow make a transcluded version for both there and the achievements[21] page. Otherwise we'll have to manually update both every time there is a change. FunkMonk (talk) 01:12, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Generally a good idea (maybe we can make the list more compact?), though visitors will be much more likely to visit Portal:Dinosaurs, which has yet another showcase for our good and featured content (and which urgently needs an update again). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 04:57, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I fixed the italics in the GA section, in addition to removing Hatzegopteryx, which is a pterosaur and not part of WP:DINO. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 22:28, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Question about the DML

I'll be nominating Cristatusaurus for GA sometime in the next few days, since I almost got everything relevant to the animal broadly covered. I just came upon the only information I've been able to find on the claw fossils referred to it (one of which there is an image of in the article), however, it's from the Dinosaur Mailing List.[22] Now, I looked through the talk page archives to see what has been said about using it as a source and I'm still a bit confused. Are the DML archives considered reliable? And if so, what kind of information should they be used to cite? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 02:46, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

It seems the DML has been accepted as a source in the past. But I think it should be only used for uncontroversial info (such as your example), and not for unpublished hypotheses, for example. FunkMonk (talk) 03:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

I think the important part in the latter case would be that it's made clear that it's a credible palaeonologist expressed their thoughts informally online. In cases where it's relevant to other stuff in section, it could still be justifiable including it. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Very well, added it with this edit[23], among other things. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 06:27, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Strangely, it seems our photos of the fossils are the only ones online. I took two of them (ten years ago!), nice to see them finally put to proper use and to know the story behind them. FunkMonk (talk) 08:57, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

It's hard for me to resist reviewing Cristatusaurus, but I think it's good with diverse reviewers of articles in a topic (I also GA reviewed Oxalaia). But if no one else steps in, I'll take it. Note that Hendrickx and co. also discussed Cristatusaurus briefly in this free article, which you haven't cited:[24] FunkMonk (talk) 08:32, 22 September 2018 (UTC)