Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 13

A strength of Wikipedia are collaborative efforts. Our WikiProject offers several instruments for collaborative editing, including the Paleoart Review (which is a continued success) and the Palaeontology collaboration (which recently got new momentum). However, our core occupation – standard article work – was often without much interaction between project members, as our project offers no suitable instrument.

User:FunkMonk had the idea of a dedicated Peer Review to fill this gap, partly inspired by the internal A class review of the military history Wikiproject. We were discussing and developing the idea during the past weeks. Such a Peer Review, where any Paleo article, small or large, can be presented, enables authors to gain feedback and support for their work, and others to take notice of and participate in some of the many small accomplishments made in our project. Below we outline one possible way how such a Peer Review could be set up, though everything, including the viability of the idea itself, is of course open for discussion and requires approval by a majority of project members.

We could cover three types of reviews, each in a dedicated section: Fact Checks, Full Peer Reviews, and Old FA reviews. In the "Fact Checks" section, comments could be "content only" – to not bother the author with lengthly lists of minor style issues. This type of review is suitable for any new or reworked article, irrespective of length and completeness. The "Full Peer Review" could offer help to bring articles into shape for GAN and FAC. The "Old FA reviews" could spotlight one of the many old neglected FAs that are in need of improvement; a consistent problem which naturally becomes larger over time.

Everything could be kept as simple and automatised as possible. We envisage a routine very similar to the existing Paleoart Review, with automatic archival after a set time of inactivity. En passant comments are encouraged, and no full reviews are required since we do not have supports or opposes, fails or passes. Nominators would be expected to act on any issues presented to them, although direct collaborative editing to the nominated article would be encouraged.

For now, we would like to know:

• 1) Is the idea viable and worth a try?
• 2) If yes – do you have any thoughts, alternative ideas, or improvements to the possible setup outlined above?
• 3) Would you be interested in submitting articles to such a PeerReview, and do you possibly have suitable articles already?
• 4) Would you be interested in commenting on submitted articles? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, all I can add is that though we do have a palaeo peer review page, it has never really been used for anything but a list (I only learned it existed a few weeks ago), so we'd need some sort of new layout and infrastructure similar to the image review or military A-class to get it up and running. But looking at the list, it seems Kevmin added newly created articles there? FunkMonk (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd support a Fact Check and maybe a Revitalize section, but if someone's looking for a full peer review, they might as well go to WP:PR.   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

1: I think that this is a pretty good idea, although I suppose WP:PR could also be used (like I did with Puertasaurus)

2: One thing that I find helpful with initial expansion is to have someone look over what's there and then provide a list of questions regarding the content, like what Jens did when I started work on the paleobiology section of Acamptonectes. This sort of feedback was useful for focusing my efforts and building up momentum.

3: I'm currently working on expansions to Peloneustes and Tatenectes, so once those are ready sending them through an internal peer review would be really nice!

4: Commenting on submitted articles would be a good way to build up skills for GAN and FAC reviews, something that I personally feel quite apprehensive about doing. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 19:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, and yes, I tend to agree – we already have WP:PR for the regular reviews, and that place has the added advantage that people without much background knowledge can check for comprehensibility (a difficult thing to do for us insiders). So we could restrict ourselves to the Fact Checks (and possibly Old FA reviews). Maybe we could integrate a list of the active Paleontology reviews at WP:PR though, so that we still have everything in sight. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The regular peer reviews don't attract so many paleo editors, though, maybe because people may feel they have to conduct a complete review of the entire article at that FAC/GAN level? With this new system, drive by comments by anyone regardless of FAC/GAN experience would be encouraged, so people can participate without reading entire articles, which would hopefully attract more people. That is of course also possible at normal peer review, but there must be a reason why few people participate in them? Maybe they are not so visible either? FunkMonk (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I must confess I had missed the paleo reviews at WP:PR far too often, probably because new paleo articles to review appear there far too infrequently and I just forget to check that list regularly. An internal Palaeontology Review would be something I would definitely have on my watch list. Maybe we can even transclude the relevant WP:PR reviews to our internal Peer Review? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:08, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Or should we just keep it flexible, naming it "Fact Checks" while asking the nominator to indicate when they are looking for a more extensive review? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

PRs do appear in the article alerts section on the project page, if you're looking for a place to find the paleo-related ones. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 20:15, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I was about to suggest transclusion here too, I wonder if it's technically possible? Because then we would get the best of both worlds... FunkMonk (talk) 20:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

If we're trying to set up our own independent system, we can steal from the DYK setup and do what's below (maybe change the color scheme so the plagiarism isn't too obvious), and then we can ask the PR coordinators if they can add a parameter specifically to redirect to our fact-checking page (maybe |paleo=yes). I haven't quite figured out how they did archive1 and archive2 and so forth, and I'd need to make some other templates to make this work properly, but if this is the direction we're heading in I can work on it more   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

More information Extended content ...

Extended content

Here is how to request a fact-checking review Please don't panic I. Create the nomination subpage. Enter the article title in the box below and click the button. You will then be taken to a preloaded nomination page. II. Write the request. On the nomination page, tell us a little about the subject and what you expect from a reviewer. Is this article special for you? Or are you planning on nominating for GA or FA? Are you revitalizing an older GA or FA? Click Save page. Make sure your review page is on your watchlist, so you can follow the review discussion. III. Post at Fact-check. At the top of the current reviews section, add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Paleontology Fact-check/YOUR ARTICLE TITLE}}. Add an edit summary e.g. "Listing YOUR ARTICLE TITLE for fact-checking" and click Save page. Add {{Paleo fact-checker}} to the top of your article's talk page {{Paleo fact-checker}} banner would be A request has been made for this article to be fact-checked to receive a broader perspective on how it may be improved. Please make any edits you see fit to improve the quality of this article.

Close

This would be a pretty good idea, since it looks like an easier way, and maybe more practical for new users? Though I think the question if the article is special for you might not be necessary because the articles nominated by users are usually (if not always) special (or important) for them. The color scheme might also be very obvious that it belongs to a DYK, so I agree that some changes should be made. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 08:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Copying the DYK setup is certainly an option, but isn't it a bit overkill for our comparatively small project? I was, instead, thinking about just copying the Paleoart Review setup instead, with slight modifications. Advantages of this approach I see include:

• We know it well, and it already proved its worth.
• We have all reviews on the same page (in separate sections), not in separate sub-pages. This is of disadvantage for a large project (such as DYK) but might be better for a small one, since we have all activity concentrated on a single site (we have all new comments to any review immediately on our watchlist).
• It is easier to setup, and easier to maintain. The only technical part would be the automated archival, and the inclusion of the list of reviews from WP:PR.
• Minimal recurrent maintenance. We should not underestimate this, even minor maintenance tasks that need to be made regularly will become a big problem long-term! (DYK seems to use a dedicated bot for this, but again, I think that is too much for us!). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:30, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jens that for small and short reviews a system similar to the Paleoart review, or maybe the "Fact Checks" would be more practical, but for the longer reviews such as the ones before FA or GA, I think the "Full Peer Review" or basically WP:PR would be more suited. I also didn't remember that the DYK process needs a bot, so that might not be so practical for small reviews, again, I agree with Jens on that one. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 10:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Paleoart scheme is better   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:34, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I would also support a system similar to the palaeoart page. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:36, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this (WP:PALEOART system) sounds good. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 23:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

• The Geology project has this system Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Peer reviews, where active geology-related peer reviews are sent through WP:PR but transcluded on the page (although it doesn't look like it's seen action in 5 years). This is something that we could consider if we want to make long paleo peer reviews more visible. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 23:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree with both of Slate Weasel's comments: a dedicated WP:PALEOART-style fact check page plus transclusion of relevant peer reviews. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:02, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Here's another proposition for the interface:

More information Extended content ...

Extended content

This page is for conducting peer reviews of paleontology-related articles. There are three different types of reviews that you can submit an article to, and which format to choose depends based on the article. Please read the below instructions to find which one is correct for your needs. Fact Checks Fact checks are relatively quick reviews that are mainly focused on article content. They are mainly used to assess the article's accuracy, and can be applied to any article, regardless of quality or length. To get an article fact-checked, click the button below to create a new section. Please title the section with the article name for clarity. Click here to submit an article for a fact check Full Peer Review Full peer reviews are longer and more rigorous, and also involve critique on style, prose, and layout. These are useful for getting an expanded article into shape for WP:GAN or WP:FAC. For this type of review, please go to WP:PR and follow the instructions there. Go to WP:PR After initiating a peer review, please add {{Wikipedia:Peer review/Insert article title here/archive1}} below to transclude the review here. That way, more editors will be able to view it. Old FA Reviews Since research on a subject continues after it is promoted to featured article status, some older featured articles are now out of date. This form of peer review can be used to renovate a FA in need of updating. I don't think we really came up with how we're going to do this...

Close

This is very minimal, and I think that it would be better if someone who isn't me wrote the instructions, but it does use the PALEOART system. Feel free to edit this if you wish. What do you all think about this? Is it an adequate setup or should it be scrapped? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 17:47, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Great, thank you all. It looks like there is enough interest in setting up an internal peer review, although it is impossible to tell if we will be able to keep it alive long-term. But I also think that giving it a try will not hurt; and even if this review falls asleep eventually, it will always stay available for editors to revive (all that is needed to revive it is submitting a new article, maybe with a note on the Project's main talk page so that people remember). So let's give it a try! I will set up the page, following the advice/drafts presented above (and coming back to you, @Slate Weasel:, for the technical details), and then we can improve it together before launching it? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good, and it seems there are already a few trial articles that could be used. FunkMonk (talk) 18:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Looks like the peer review transclusion is working, but does it take in all science articles? FunkMonk (talk) 10:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Only a test. I currently see two options: 1) Automatically transclude all Science articles listed in WP:PR (using the shortlist so that it does not become too long). 2) Manually add (and remove) respective transclusions from WP:PR (the original idea of Slate Weasel), which means it will only be transcluded if the author adds it in both WP:PR and in the Paleo PeerReview. I somehow prefer 1), since it works fully automatically without any maintenance, and we always have all paleo reviews listed. The drawback is that all science articles are listed. Well, paleontology is very interdisciplinary, so it might not be a big issue. But the article alerts seem to be able to filter out the paleontology reviews; so I wonder if it would be technically possible to transclude only those automatically? Does anybody know? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@Slate Weasel: is it possible to have the blue buttons point at a specified section? Right now I got it working for the "Fact Checks", but it will open a new section only at the bottom of the page. This means that the Fact Checks need to be the last section, and that we cannot have a similar button for, e.g., the old FA reviews (which I left out for now). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The old FA reviews also need more discussion. I somehow doubt that a classical collaboration on those articles will be effective/gain much interest. Maybe we should just provide this section, encouraging authors who are planning to rework such an article to list it there, and then provide them which all possible support and contributions in the process? Like a collaboration, but with a single author responsible for keeping it going? If so, the section will remain empty until such an hero-editor appears. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe an old FA review can also be just collaboratively making a to do list without necessarily fixing it all, and then copying the list to the talk page of an article afterwards, so that the issues can be chipped away down the line? As for transclusion of only paleo tagged peer reviewed articles, perhaps Headbomb or Hellknowz knows? FunkMonk (talk) 10:48, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

1) I fear that lists of unresolved issues left at the article's talk page will motivate people to list the article as a Featured Article Removal Candidate. Or worse, such lists would permit this in the first place. 2) I agree that discussions (even without immediate acting) are important though. But I think the main issues are similar for all these articles, so it might be better to have a general discussion on what the issues are, and how to solve them and keep them maintainable in the future. For example, the more important articles may need sub-articles where excessive detail can go; it would be great to have general agreement on which, and when, such sub-articles should be created (this is tricky!). 3) We could, instead, have a dedicated site at the WikiProject with a list of FAs, their current state ("good" to "urgent") and issues to be fixed, as an overview? 4) If we would do this, we might not need a dedicated sub-section at the Peer Review for such articles; if review is needed, we could simply use WP:PR for this task. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:43, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the buttons, I honestly have no clue how to control where a new section is added, perhaps IJReid, who created the buttons for the DINOART and PALEOART reviews knows? I've made the color of the fact check button text white so it can actually be seen (it was blue before). Also, my progress on Tatenectes is such that it will be ready for submission for fact check in a day or two! --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 13:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Theres nothing really special to what I put Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Image review/Header more than changing the text and the button size and specs etc. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• Also, do we want a shortcut for this review page? If so, would WP:PALEOPR be good? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 13:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Sure, why not! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• The problem with the button is that you set action=edit&section=new so it will try to create a new section. Since Fact Check is your 2nd section on the page, you should do action=edit&section=2   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:SECT indicates that it is not possible to control where new sections are added. The only way I can see this working is creating dedicated subpages and transcluding them into the primary page. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

That brings us back to how do we archive these pages   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:35, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

What we could do is use action=edit&section=2, and instruct the user to put down {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/ARTICLETITLE/archiveNUMBER}} at the top of the list, and then save, click on the red link, and create the review page. For example, when a user hits the button, they might see

=Fact check=

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Tyrannosaurus/archive1}}

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Velociraptor/archive3}}

. . .

and when they save they would see their nomination as Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review/Triceratops/archive1 and would have to click on this redlink and create a page   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. As it is now, the link for the Fact check will work (since the Fact Checks section is the last section). The old FA review is still being discussed (see above) but here we could just use the standard way (clicking just "edit" at the respective section as we do everywhere). I personally would avoid creating any dedicated sub-pages for the reviews, as this would require more maintenance I think? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Folks, we have the Peer review ready now, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Peer review. There are still things to improve (see discussion above) but I think the current version will work for now just fine. Old FA reviews may still be added (please discuss the details with us, see above). Automatic archival is another unsolved issue, as the regular bots are for talk pages only; I'm sure we can persuade some bot operator to include us, but maybe our odds are better once the page is actually full. We can even think about implementing the automatic archivals for the Paleoart reviews in one go. Please make any edits you feel fit, and if there are no more concerns we could start with the first reviews very soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Great! I just thought of another type of article that could be sent there; FAs which have been substantially expanded since being promoted, and whose new text has therefore not been reviewed. For example, Ankylosaurus became a FA before the newest redescription was published, and while it was later expanded accordingly, the text was never reviewed, and might need a check-up. Similarly, once Spinophorosaurus is fully updated, it will also be substantially expanded since its FA promotion, and could need a check up. And once I've incorporated the info from the new Dilophosaurus monograph, I'm sure it could need a fresh look over too (the culture section was also expanded recently)... That would count as a review of old FAs as well, just with more focus on the expanded text. Any thoughts on that? FunkMonk (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes sure, the intro explicitly states that "articles of any length and quality" (statement authored by Slate Weasel) may be submitted to the "Fact Check". This includes old and not-so-old FAs of course. Maybe we can formulate it more clearly that we are open for everything? Do we need to replace the term "Fact Checks" with something more general? We can also ask the nominator to indicate whether they are looking for a more comprehensive review? I think we should make this Peer Review as flexible as possible, but at the same time I tried to make clear that this is not just a redundant copy of WP:PR. Any suggestions on how to do this better are highly welcome. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Added a sentence to the intro to explicitly mention this possibility, how does it look? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah, you're way ahead of me! The text looks inclusive enough, and I think I might put up Ankylosaurus as a test soon if we're ready. Edit: Anky now added! FunkMonk (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Since the review process seems to be going pretty well, some questions have arisen that we may want to discuss: 1, how and when do we archive? Do we move the discussions to the talk pages of the articles in question only or should the PR page also have its own archive to keep track of its history? 2, what happens after a PR, can the same reviewers just quick pass the articles at GAN if they have done a full review, or would that be improper? Maybe Casliber (as an admin and paleo editor) has some idea of what would be good conduct? FunkMonk (talk) 23:40, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Also is it allowed to have an open PR while the article is at GAN or FAC?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

No problem I'd think, unless of course it's the "standard" PR which has its own rules. Though it's of course best to wait nominating for GAN/FAC until all issues raised at PR have been addressed. FunkMonk (talk) 09:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't really have an opinion about an internal archive; we would have the content in two separate places (the archive and the article's talk page), and it would require more maintenance, but I also see the benefits. If someone wants to set an archive up I would personally be fine with it. Regarding the quick pass at GAN, I also thought about that … I just asked at GAN, lets see what they say: --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:29, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Right then, am finding it hard to get enthused enough to do much content at the moment, but given the excellent work done to get Paleocene featured, I reckon we should strike while the iron is hot and get some other epochs done. That article can now work as a template so we can get other articles looking the same. I have reorganized Eocene. Is this something folks are keen on working on? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe Dunkleosteus77, who did Paleocene, has some ideas for how this could be achieved. At the moment, I'd probably try to get the "official" palaeo collaboration Acamptonectes done before moving on to another (but I can review, which is always in short anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 10:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Fair points. Will take a look at the official collab tomorrow Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:08, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Each epoch is going to have to be somewhat tailor-made depending on what's more important to this stage than others (for example, Paleocene is much different than the Boring Billion). The Eocene is known for having an explosion of floral and faunal taxa, and a lot of what is known about Paleocene taxa comes from the fact that these taxa are already well abundant by the beginning of the Eocene. Given this, it may be better to split up the Flora section into Angiosperms, Gymnosperms, Pteridophytes, and Algae depending on how much is known about each   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:04, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Eocene only gets around 400 page views a day while Jurassic, Cretaceous and Pleistocene get around 1,150, 1,350 and 1,250 daily views respectively. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:22, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Considering most users in this Wikiproject tend to focus on dinosaurs and Mesozoic creatures in general, it may be better to choose a Mesozoic epoch for a collaborative effort   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:12, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

I also think that it's a good idea to focus on where most layreaders will actually look, "gateway" articles we could call them. Most people have heard of the Jurassic, and will probably look there first, so if such articles are up to snuff, we've already come a long way in "educating" readers. Same with for example dinosaurs that appeared in Jurassic Park, most people will have heard of them, so more people will visit those articles. FunkMonk (talk) 21:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Ultimately, all of the geological epoch articles should be GA or FA because there aren't that many of them and geological epoch articles fall into the core remit of a classical enycylopedia, it's just that we should prioritize the most read articles first. Given that it is the most viewed, I propose that the Cretaceous as the article for collaboration. For the Cretaceous there's a lot of significant changes to cover, like the final breakup of gondwana, the rise of flowering plants, sea level changes C-T anoxic event and of course the K-Pg boundary. I don't think that the current article is awful but it is definitely lacking. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

sure. getting all the epoch articles up to GA and FA is a very good idea.Clone commando sev (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea of doing them in a sequence, so Cretaceous is next to Paleocene....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:11, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

The official collaboration, Acamptonectes, is almost done, so we could nominate Cretaceous as a candidate for the next one. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we should try to wrap that one up? I've started to write about the mandible, will probably also take the teeth. FunkMonk (talk) 14:59, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I can do the postcranium as soon as I get some time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

A new paper was published today, coining the new clade Zambellisauria for Peteinosaurus + Macronychoptera and Caviramidae for Arcticodactylus + Caviramus (interestingly Caviramidae was previously "predicted" on DeviantArt for the same clade, but likely as a replacement for Raeticodactylidae). The paper's findings seem at odds with the phylogeny used on Wikipedia; what should we do? Atlantis536 (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

we do the obvious. wait to see if any retractions are made. if no, we update the article/s. if yes we should find some consensus. Clone commando sev (talk) 03:14, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Günter Bechly (2nd nomination) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Pulmonoscorpius averages 94 views per day yet is a 2 line stub, is anyone interested in improving it? there are some really nice images of the holotype at GB3D (See www.3d-fossils.ac.uk/fossilType.cfm?typSampleId=25001235 the link wont properly format for some reason) but these are under a NC license unfortunately. Hemiauchenia (talk)

eh it is a stub. should be pretty easy to improve. i'll do some work on it, when i get some time. Clone commando sev (talk) 02:17, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

As noted at its talk page, List of Chengjiang Biota species by phylum has large numbers of links redirecting back to itself, which is pointless and misleading (as it doesn't show the absence of an article). Any views as to what should be done about this? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:49, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

No taxa should redirect to the formation it was found in. If no article exists, they should be left as redlinks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  13:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

That's just bizarre. At worst they should redirect to the parent phyla. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:00, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

why would someone do that? it is truly mind-boggling. Clone commando sev (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I've dealt with some of this by creating articles for the ones that were part of Artiopoda, I did think at the time that the redirect choices were puzzling. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Having re-looked at one of the articles I created, many of them appear to have been unsourced stubs that were redirected by @Stemonitis: back in 2010-11. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

This also means that many of the re-directs can simply undone, is everyone okay with me doing this? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm down. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

unsourced stubs can be improved. go ahead. Clone commando sev (talk) 02:50, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: any action that gets rid of the redirects as they are now is good! Peter coxhead (talk) 05:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I've gone through the "what links here" section of the article and undone all of the redirects, there were over 25 in total. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

A complete list of stubs in case anybody is interested in improving them Jianfengia Almenia Clypecaris Combinivalvula Cyathocepalus Dianchia Comptaluta DiplopygeDongshanocaris Ercaia Ercaicunia Forticeps Glossocaris Haikoucaris Jianshania Jiucunella Kunmingella Kunmingocaris Kunyangella Mafangia MalongellaOvalicephalisParakunmingella Primicaris Pterotum Pseudoiulia. Many cambrian arthropod stubs are barren but these are especially bad. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I'll have a go at them after Klamelisaurus. I need a long-running project, haha... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 04:03, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Lithopsian: you undid one of my reversions stating "the discussion was hardly consensus to create pointless uncited one-line articles simply to avoid self-redirects" would you like to explain why your opinion overrides the concensus of four people here? Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

i see similar things all the time. it happens alot at DRN. some people just think they are more important i guess Clone commando sev (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia - local consensus does not override WP:UNSOURCED: .... should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Please reference the articles or change them back to redirects. --John B123 (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• Sorry, but why was the accepted solution to this the creation of two dozen unsourced stubs? That's not a good state of affairs by any measure. Why not just have a redlinkdelink until a sourced stub is created? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:26, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

For fucks sake. I did what I was asked to by members of the community and do not appreciate being berated as if I am the sole instigator of this problem, I explicitly said the stubs were unsourced. I am currently working on improving Clypecaris, Almenia appears to be a junior synonym of Cindarella so I redirected that one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

See WP:BURDEN: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. --John B123 (talk) 20:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, while you have done nothing but complain I've already fixed half the entries. Hemiauchenia (talk)

@Hemiauchenia: If pointing out your disregard for one of the Wikipedia:Core content policies, WP:VERIFY, is complaining, then yes I'm guilty. Another policy you might want to look at is WP:CIVIL. --John B123 (talk) 21:59, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I've now fixed all the entries, redirecting the ones that had barely any refs or were synonyms. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! See, if these had been Taiwanese municipalities or something like that they'd have sat there unsourced for a year until someone finally blew a gasket, which is why I get jumpy when unsourced stubs appear in the double digits :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:53, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

This article is in need of a massive cleanup, it gets over 500 views a day. The whole discussion of the Quaternary extinction event is requires nuance, which this article does not have, large sections are uncited and it's just a big mess, is anyone interested in helping me clean this up?

I honestly feel that this article needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:47, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand what is bad about it? The article has 318 citations, is broad in scope with various hypotheses listed and lists of genera and species that now somehow are removed (why?). As the most recent extinction event that was global it will always be "a bit messy" because of the broad coverage. What is your problem with the article? Tisquesusa (talk) 14:51, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Like a lot of wikipedia articles that have received lots of drive by additions, I think a lot of the content of the article is good but the structure is poor. I think that the lists of exinct animals by continent can be split into a separate article to increase coherency of the main text. Large amounts of the text are not properly cited and might be WP:OR, there's little discussion of specific well tracked extinctions like those of the Woolly Mammoth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

In my view the lists of extinct taxa are best shown in a wikitable form with percentages per group, I remember having seen that data somewhere, but I don't recall where exactly. Isn't the idea of an overview article that specifics about the woolly mammoth are not pushed too much, yet belong in that article? Else you get bias towards certain animals, just that what an overview article should avoid. There may be some updating needed with the research of the last years included, but overall the article looks fine to me. Tisquesusa (talk) 16:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

It's missing a coherent history of research section, like the recognition of extinction in the early 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, the origin of Paul S Martin's overkill hypothesis, which is reduced to a single sentence. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I've just looking the articles of viverravids and I noticed that Mustelodon lacks of references, and I couldn't find any book or journal that uses that name (well, just one, but is a book that cites Wikipedia). I find suspicious it, considering that the information says that it's a mammal from the Paleocene of Panama, and the oldest mammals that I know from there are from the Miocene. Maybe it's a hoax?--Rextron (talk) 08:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

the only place I'm finding it is on the book Felines of the World from 2019, and it's only a brief mention that it was an early member of Viverravidae   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  12:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

My guess it that this taxon does not exist; not sure if the alleged species name M. primerus is even possible, correct would be M. primus. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Even if the taxon is poorly documented, you would expect there to be a physical record of a Lago Nandarajo or Lake Nandarajo in Panama.

Nada. It's a hoax. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 16:03, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this taxon might be a hoax. There are no mentionts of this genus in the both "Theodore Sherman Palmer: Index Generum Mammalium: A List of the Genera and Families of Mammals" from 1904, and "Malcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level" from 1997. These books are best sources from 20th century where you can look for data about some extinct mammal taxons discovered between 1800s and 1997. Also, none of the science papers since 1997 ever mentioned this genus.--The Explaner (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to start an AfD if nobody else objects. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

This article exists in four other languages. What is the best way to let these other projects know about this apparent hoax? Enwebb (talk) 21:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, at 14 years, 8 months, 29 days, this could be the longest lived documented hoax, the current record is 14 years, 5 months, 30 days. Enwebb (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I just set this article as AfD on Serbian Wikipedia.--The Explaner (talk) 21:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I created a discussion on WikiProject Palaeontology in Spanish. Looks like it still has some watchers. I've never nominated for deletion in another language, so I hope someone there can see and take care of it. Similarly, I created a machine-translated post on Catalan WikiProject Mammals, which doesn't appear super active. Enwebb (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The version in Spanish is already nominated.--Rextron (talk) 06:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks like deletion has now been proposed on all language version except Dutch. Enwebb (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

deletion proposal on Dutch Wikipedia is now also done. --Dick Bos (talk) 06:46, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

We should also remember to remove mentions of Mustelodon from other articles   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77: Done, removed from all mainspace articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mustelodon Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, a small clue might be that Panama doesn't have a "northern border" (other than a very tiny strip): it's bounded on the north and south by sea as per File:Pm-map.png. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:16, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

This is currently the longest running hoax in Wikipedia history, at 14 years and 9 months. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:51, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more like it, our prehistoric mammal article's haven't gotten much love until recently, with many groups so obscure that few would notice such hoaxes... We still have a huge amount of prehistoric mammal genus red links as well. FunkMonk (talk) 00:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The double negative is pretty confusing there, but I agree there are likely to be other non-obvious hoax articles, the problem is that simply few people care for the pre-Quaternary Cenozoic in comparison to the Mesozoic. There's also this issue that relatively few people are reading those articles. Arguably we should be prioritising the articles on Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Popular pages to maximise our impact on readers rather than focusing on creating articles that might average 1 view per day. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Such mammals are just really hard to write about, because they get little scientific attention as well, and therefore have really messy taxonomies (I wouldn't have been able to do Paraceratherium if I didn't have a book that synthesised the huge literature). I'd like to do an entelodont one day, I think Archaeotherium might be the easiest contender. FunkMonk (talk) 09:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I have proposed merging the articles Panthera schreuderi and P. toscana to the article Panthera gombaszoegensis, as the former two are mere junior synonyms. Please comment here.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 23:49, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

If those are clear cut cases, you should add merge tags to the articles to attract more attention. FunkMonk (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I have done so. Thank you for the reminder. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I undid some changes to Coelurosauravus jaekeli because they broke the taxobox. An editor has now just changed the text of the article to change the binomial, but not moved it nor changed the taxobox. Could someone look at it please? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Transferred to Weigeltisaurus. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:00, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

While reviewing Paranthropus boisei, I noticed the user Nowimnthing created dozens of short or stub articles for hominid fossils back in 2006 (see here and sub-cats). Today, some of them have been expanded to a point that could justify keeping them separate (though much of this info is about the taxa, not the specimens themselves, and therefore WP:content forks), but many remain short stubs with little logic as to why they would remain separate from their respective taxon articles (see for example Peninj Mandible or AL 200-1). I'd suggest most of them be merged, but since it's a significant number of articles, it needs a wider discussion. An alternative could be merging them and their info into List of human evolution fossils, as was done with the informally named dinosaurs articles. FunkMonk (talk) 14:11, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:10, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I just found this article with a large portion of the text that was added by the subject themselves, Michael Wachtler, who appears to be promoting self published pseudoscience paleontology.--Kevmin § 01:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Does he meet the notability baseline to even have an article?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:36, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think he does; the article should be deleted. Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

A lot of text in the article sure doesn't pertain directly to him. Don't think we need a detailed exposition of Megachirella wachtleri in a BLP. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The entire article beyond the Life section sounds like an editorial; just pick out any sentence at random and it sounds wholly un-encyclopedic and far too flowery, "Unimpressed by the charges brought up and the prison sentences, Michael Wachtler is considered more and more to be the "warning voice" against the destruction of nature in the Dolomites. Although the DoloMythos Museum is in danger of being closed by the authorities, he continues to fight without pause and more than ever before to raise the awareness of humans for the fragile environment"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I have started a deletion discussion

I think many of the references also seem unreliable, but I'm not sure. The whole article also seems a bit strange; agreed that a detailed section for an animal discovery is unnecessary, and a lot of sentences do seem un-encyclopedic. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:06, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, what is the purpose of the Prehistoric reptile article? It feels like a relic from 2009. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:09, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Err, maybe redirect to Evolution of reptiles? Seems like a pointless WP:Content fork. FunkMonk (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

While looking through dinosaur articles, I noticed that Hesham Sallam, the describer of Mansourasaurus, has an article, despite not having a lot of notable contributions to paleontology under his name. Looking deeper, I discovered some... odd things about the page. See my analysis on the talk page. Atlantis536 (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've nominated the article for deletion. Atlantis536 (talk) 12:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I commented there, the gist being that it is unfortunate we have so few articles about non-western scientists, and many sources about him are probably in Arabic. Anyway, that's not based on Wikipedia gui8delines necessarily, so let's see how it goes. But I think we can be more lax for the sake of balance. FunkMonk (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The preprint for the second specimen has been made available which has been submitted to eLife and will probably be formally published soon, there is also an interesting accompanying NatGeo piece, which is worth a read. Oculudentavis is definitely a lizard, but with an uncertain placement. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

So who will dare draw our life restoration of it? FunkMonk (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Both skulls have been crushed in proportionally different ways, a restoration is given in the preprint (p. 27) which represents a compromise between the two, and on a technical level looks quite good., the amber dripping around what looks like the living lizard to obscure the unknown hind sections does look incredibly goofy though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:39, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

That reconstruction should be under a free CC licence once published in eLife anyways, right, so we can use it directly? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:07, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Based on the notability discussion that happened during the withdrawn DYK nomination, I have started a merge discussion on talk:Schöningen forest elephant, input is requested.--Kevmin § 15:26, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I called an AfD on the draft of this article in July which resulted in it being kept. The article has now been moved to mainspace at Parirau ataroa and I have opened up a second deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parirau ataroa. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Tisquesusa has started to add "correlations" tables which show a rather random selection of formations from a given time period and shows a point system graph of what has been found in the formations. See Victorlemoinea and Golden Valley Formation. the problem is there is no indication of what sources are used for each table, and from my perspective they seem like rather wp:coatrackish information dumps collectons. For the Golden Valley formation, why have the rest of the Okanagan highlands formations been left off (Klondike Mountain Formation, McAbee Fossil Beds, Driftwood Canyon etc, while several formations with no articles are on the table. thoughts?--Kevmin § 01:19, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not keen on them, for all the reasons you give. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't like it either. If we want something like this, we need sources like Fowler (2017) . Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:59, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I already dislike the San Juan Cretaceous stratigraphy image that has been slapped on to numerous formation articles (e.g. Kirtland Formation), which poorly represents the complex intertonguing relationships of the San Juan basin. But I can at least imagine it being useful for some reader somewhere, and it's probably okay appearing just once in San Juan Basin. This one has the potential to be slapped onto hundreds of articles and shed almost no light in any of them. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 02:08, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I assume your comment is re: Fowler? I don't disagree, these sources need to be judiciously used in articles in a way that complements and illustrates surrounding prose, instead of replacing it altogether. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

The wastebasket taxon Steneosaurus was finally broken up, but that leaves a lot of new articles for us to create (I'm not sure I've seen so many new genera named in a single paper before), and synonyms to redirect (and free images to upload), so please have a look: https://peerj.com/articles/9808/?fbclid=IwAR3kGmKVKlYj40gUCpYLt2Il81ntg-acIy0jgjNAeBid9KILf3jS6Vc77Y4 FunkMonk (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Though not a palaeontological subject per se, there is no denying the influence the Walking with... series of documentaries has had on the latest generations of fans of dinosaur and other prehistoric animals, which is why I feel like this is an appropriate place to bring this up. I'm trying to do some work in cleaning up the coverage of them, I've for instance expanded Sea Monsters, but there is a lot of unnecessary and excessive stuff on here. I've nominated three articles for deletion, so I encourage anyone interested to participate in these discussions; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of creatures by Impossible Pictures (a ridiculous unsourced list with tonnes of original research), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dinosaur World (video game) (not a notable subject to begin with) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life (not sure why this book in particular needs a Wikipedia article). Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I remember having to go home from primary school after playing Dinosaur World at lunch time as it made me nauseous, I have a copy of it on my computer for some reason. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I also remember playing the game as a kid; it's nostalgic to be sure but I don't believe it to be a notable subject. Additionally, if some sources are found, it could perhaps be better accomodated within the Walking with Dinosaurs article (which already has subsections on the book version of the series, the "arena spectacular" and the movie). Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Definitely agree it could probably find a better home there. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree the game could just be merged. Now you mention it, I also remember playing it as a kid, but it didn't leave much of an impression, haha... FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Here's another AfD tangentially related to Palaeontology: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of creatures in Primeval (4th nomination). Ichthyovenator (talk) 09:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Likewise, I also tagged Prehistoric Planet (which is just a recut of the other series) for merging long ago, but nothing happened. FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that Prehistoric Planet should be merged. Seeing as there's been no opposition to the merge suggestion for over a year I feel like maybe it would be okay to just go ahead and merge them? Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe what's now the intro could just be a section in the walking with article? Then the list can just be ignored. But I wonder if there are any useful sources about it?FunkMonk (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the list could be ignored seeing as it's just a list of animals (and there does not appear to be any differences between the animals featured here and the animals features in the original series seeing as it's a recut). It seems to be quite obscure so finding sources is a bit difficult (this was a problem even for the more well-known Sea Monsters), but perhaps this article could be used, if only for a few statements. The Walking with Dinosaurs article has a paragraph on the review by Common Sense Media for that series; Common Sense Media has a review for Prehistoric Planet as well, so perhaps that could also be used. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It's amazing how there are people who want to keep the list around. A truly terrible list. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 21:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

At least one person is probably disagreeing on principle. But with luck and policy, this will be the time it gets deleted.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 21:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that article is absolute afwul wikia-tier fancruft, makes the "List of cloned animals in the Jurassic Park series" look like a masterpiece by comparison. The random non-primeval illustrations of the animals is the icing on the cake, really. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with all of you Lythronaxargestes, SilverTiger12 & Hemiauchenia; it astounds me that it has survived three AfD:s. So far there's only three (surprising in of itself) keeps against six (or seven, I dunno if I count as the nominator) deletes. Perhaps fate will finally catch up to it. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Hey, just stopping by to let yall know that I have (a) nominated the redirect Pratifelis for speedy deletion (Db-move), and (b) plan to move the article Pratifelis martini there as per normal policy to treat prehistoric species at the genus page. I also plan to expand the article once it's moved with what little mentions of it I could track down, so please don't mess with it yet. Happy editing! SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Considering the article has had only 20 edits in its decade long history, I think it's fine. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

New research came out of Saccorhytus showing that it was in fact not a deuterostome, but an ecdysozoan. The article is therefore in need of a rewrite in light of this. However, rewriting the description section has me stumped; should the description privilege recent research, or should it be equally weighted on both its former interpretation as a deuterostome and its newfound one as an ecdysozoan? Giant Blue Anteater (talk) 22:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Considering how quickly these things change, I think the best thing we can do is state when there are different views and attribute the authors in text. A similar case could be Tullimonstrum. FunkMonk (talk) 22:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the new article is still only a pre-print and has not been peer reviewed or published, it should not be incorporated into the article until it has done so. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:30, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Given that it is a preprint, the article should not be rewritten to focus on its perspective yet, although it may be worth briefly mentioning. If this research is properly published, I think the article should be written to put more emphasis on the new interpretation. After all, there is only one previous paper for the older interpretation and the new interpretation is based on additional material—it's not like this is overturning an established consensus or simply reinterpreting the same controversial fossils. Ornithopsis (talk) 20:10, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

The Picrodon article has recently came to my attention, and reading it, I discovered what may be misrepresentation of sources. See my discussion on the talk page. Atlantis536 (talk) 01:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

The first albanerpetontid to be described from Burmese amber, Yaksha peretti including a 3d dimensionally preserved skull, the first known for an albanerpetontid has just been published in Science, the skull is so good that it is probably worth creating a diagram of. The interpretation of albanerpetontids lifestyle from the new remains is also interesting, the bone arrangement suggest that they had ballistic tongues like chameleons. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

"Ballistic Tongues". That would be an excellent name for a rock band. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

"Ballistic feeders" is also a great name. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Just a brief notice to flag the move discussion at Talk:Selenotherium. It is listed in the article alerts on the project page, but the blurb is very minimalistic. To me, it looks like the sources show that the title should be moved from Selenotherium to Selenetherium, but input from people with more expertise than I have of interpreting scholarly paleontology sources would be appreciated! --bonadea contributions talk 12:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised there is even dissent, considering the authors spelled it with an e. FunkMonk (talk) 12:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

A new study just came out that finally tests whether semicircular canal orientation correlates with the head posture of animals in life, finding it is not necessarily the case, though this has been assumed for over a century, and has been applied to various extinct animals. FACs such as Nigersaurus, Amargasaurus, and Irritator state it as fact, but we should probably use more cautious language from now on. At least Nigersaurus is mentioned in the paper, so it can be cited directly in that article, and the Irritator paper is cited as well, so should be fine too. FunkMonk (talk) 21:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

And oddly enough as if on cue, right after comes a paper which tries to infer the alert head posture of Triceratops by the above method, which should therefore be taken with a grain of salt. FunkMonk (talk) 11:21, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, they still found a correlation, so it is not a complete dismissal. And they do not directly question the Nigersaurus paper at all. It is still possible (or even likely?) that the semicircular canals reflect a tendency for Nigersaurus to have a more vertical head than seen in other sauropods; it is just that the evidence for this is not as strong as previously assumed. But yes, we need to formulate it more carefully. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:15, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the papers that use it always orient the head posture directly after how the canal is angled when it is straight horizontal, so though it has some bearing on posture, they are too rigid in their interpretation, is how I understand it. Is the text I added to Nigersaurus balanced enough? FunkMonk (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks good; I would add that they tested it on modern mammals, otherwise people might think they somehow tested it on Nigersaurus, or dinosaurs in general, directly. A minor nitpick: A correlation cannot be "precise", it can be strong or weak. The method can be precise or imprecise. Maybe this could be reformulated? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Good ideas, and I'll see if I can specifically mention/specify diagnostic features in Nigersaurus too, seems I didn't do that much in the first dinosaur FACs I worked on... FunkMonk (talk) 19:11, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm still not sure if all diagnostic features should always be mentioned, though I usually did so in my articles. Often these are tiny details that even a specialist sometimes won't fully understand without a figure. They make an article very difficult to read, and may discourage folks from reading on. On the other hand, they give the reader at least some idea about how these taxa are defined. Maybe it is best to have them in a paragraph of their own rather than spread across the description section, so that a reader can quickly skip it (I now did so for Carnotaurus). Maybe that paragraph should be under taxonomy ("Classification" section?) anyways since they define the taxon? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I think it has mostly been understandable enough (with some glossing), but yeah, in some cases, as with some of the new diagnostic definitions I added to Dilophosaurus, it can be very hard to explain or even to udnerstand myself. But personally, I think if few of the features are understandable, but most of them are, I'd keep them in description (as was also the case with Dilophosaurus). On the other hand, I have often added features identifying a taxon as part of a wider group under classification, where I think such belong. But it's certainly something that could be discussed further, and probably best to judge on a case to case basis (and probably up to individual writers). I have to look up the sources for Nigersaurus in particular before I'm sure what's best to do there... FunkMonk (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Here's an attempt at rewording some of the head posture stuff and added diagnosis (there wasn't so much), does it look ok? FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I am currently working on text for the Cretaceous article over at User:Hemiauchenia/sandbox99999, Its difficult to know how much depth to go into in terms of change in Dinosaur faunas as well as the rise of flowering plants. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd emphasize that there is no clear downturn in dinosaur diversity prior to the K-Pg. I think this is a common assumption that a lot of recent literature focuses on challenging. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:51, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77:, How would you feel about a selective merger of South Polar region of the Cretaceous into the Cretaceous article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:48, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  03:53, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

• Just for the record, I'll stay on the side-line so I can review when it comes to that (lack of palaeo-reviewers will probably be a problem if the entire project are nominators). FunkMonk (talk) 21:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• But as noted here, perhaps our next paleo and dinosaur collaborations should be focused on fixing up old FAs which risk getting demoted during the current FAR drive. It is easier to save them while they're still FAs than after they get demoted, because then they'll have to go through the entire GAN and FAC processes again... FunkMonk (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Cretaceous won the vote for the Paleo collab though, so should we start that one first? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, not sure what people are in the mood for? Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event also needs to pass FAR, so perhaps it could be a trial-run for such a collab... FunkMonk (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

There is a current proposal to rename a section of the fossil category tree ongoing here which could use more eyes.--Kevmin § 20:30, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Paranthropus robustus is at FA and is about to be archived due to a lack of reviews for the 2nd time. Pretty please leave your 2 cents if you could?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I can say I'm almost done with my review, and it looks good so far, would be a shame if it was archived. There are currently three palaeo FACs (the others being Acamptonectes and Podokesaurus), which is rare and commendable, but also means the reviewer pool is limited. So let's not waste the opportunity to get three palaeo FAs at once! FunkMonk (talk) 19:59, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• I don't know if I'll have enough time to do an exhaustive review (or enough experience, for that matter, as I only have 1 co-nomination under my belt, and no reviews)), I'm not sure if conducting a partial review is doable at FAC? If it is, I could probably chip in a few comments. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:05, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

One can always just write whatever strikes them at first, and if you get more time later, you can return to it. For me, reviewing an article rarely takes less than a few days... FunkMonk (talk) 01:08, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello all, I'm currently working on expanding Peloneustes. I'm currently working on writing the classification section in my main sandbox, but have encountered a couple of problems. First of all, I've searched far and wide for a free copy of Ketchum & Benson (2011) or any other information on Marmornectes, but have always run into disappointment. It was one of two publications I requested at WP:REX over the summer. While I got the other one, the section went stale and was archived before I got the Marmornectes description paper. Does anyone here have a copy that they could and would be willing to send me? The full citation is:

• Ketchum, Hilary F.; Benson, Roger B. J. (2011). "A new pliosaurid (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the Oxford Clay Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of England: Evidence for a gracile, longirostrine grade of Early-Middle Jurassic pliosaurids". Special Papers in Palaeontology. 86: 109–129.

If anyone can, it would be greatly appreciated! The second question I have is more of a technical one - can we incorporate information from cladograms that is not explicitly stated in the article text? For example, would it be okay to state that Fischer et. al. (2017) recovered Peloneustes as the earliest diverging thalassophonean even though this is never written out? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:12, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't have the paper, but since it's on researchgate, it may be possible to request it there? Otherwise, it probably can't hurt to request at WP:RX again. FunkMonk (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Special Papers in Paleontology are book only monographs. Like the Neovenator monograph, there's probably not an online version. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

It has a doi, though. Books consisting of research articles often have individual online versions of each chapter too. Anyhow, since it's on research gate, there should be a pdf version somewhere... FunkMonk (talk) 02:06, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The journal website's entry for the article says "Online Version Hosted By Wiley Published Book", so there must be something... ~~

The doi's actually broken. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

1) I have that paper, please check your Email! I would suggest to leave paper requests here, I think there is a good chance somebody can help quickly. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

2) Yes, I usually do that (most commonly if something is recovered as the sister taxon). If we can provide the cladogram as is, we should also be allowed to explain it to folks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I got the paper, thanks! This should be useful! I now realize that I was actually thinking of two papers here, the one you just sent me (Marmornectes description) was the one for paleoecology. The one for classification (Thalassophonea naming) is the following one:

• Benson, Roger B. J.; Druckenmiller, Patrick S. (2014). "Faunal turnover of marine tetrapods during the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition". Biological Reviews. 89 (1): 1–23.

Does anyone have this one? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiley's not on the Wikipedia library unfortunately. I was able to access the paper within seconds using Sci-Hub though, for what thats worth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:11, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, while Sci-Hub's certainly interesting, it's also quite controversial, so I think that it would be best to avoid if it's possible to get through request. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:38, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Please check your email again! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 00:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure the best place to report this, but, as I was hovering over the T(riassic) on the geological timescale which sits atop taxoboxes, I noticed that, for unknown reasons, the numbers indicating the mya in the preview page preview were missing, as if some mechanism were failing to put them there. If you hover over Triassic, the lead sentences are missing the second one of the bracketing numbers. If these numbers are not part of a template when they appear in the lead (or so I thought), why are they able to drop out like this? I'm going to ask at the Village Pump/Technical--Quisqualis (talk) 06:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I was discussing this with FunkMonk at the talk page of Thalassodromeus. So there's this subfamily/family controversy about this group (neither of them have the same definition in terms of classification), and my opinion is that considering Thalassodrominae was named first, it should be article's name. More detail about our discussion is at the Thalassodromeus talk page if anyone wants to know more about the subject, as I said earlier. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 23:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I feel like this is a non-issue. Thalassodrominae is a redirect that takes users to what they want to see regardless, provided that the page has appropriate discussion of the usage of the two different names. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 07:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Hm, you do have a good point there. But then again I think it's just about the naming priority, or the studies that use the name? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 08:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• A bit off topic, but the pterosaur navbox currently uses Dsungaripteromorpha. Has anyone even used this clade recently? It currently seems that Thalassodromeus & Tupuxuara either wind up in the azhdarchid-chaoyangopterid group or within Tapejaridae, with Dsungaripteridae basal to all three/four families, so it may not be a bad idea to change the navbox to reflect this. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:07, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Thalassodrominae is actually shown in Tapejaridae in the navbox, but just with its name, not the members (perhaps we could transfer the members in Tapejaridae, and just put the question mark with the group name in Dsungaripteromorpha, to reflect recent studies). As for the clade Dsungaripteromorpha, I think the only one who used this clade recently is Longrich et al. (2018). JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The Hot Artices section of the Wikiproject page appears to have been frozen since late November, which is strange considering that they seem to be updating fine on other projects like WP:DINO. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Odd, maybe the operator, Kaldari, could be contacted? FunkMonk (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: It stopped working because Category:WikiProject Palaeontology articles (the category that the bot has been configured to look for articles in) doesn't have any article in it. It looks like this is a result of MSGJ's edit from November. You can either undo that edit or configure the bot to look for articles in a different category. Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Forgot to ping Hemiauchenia as well. Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Oops, sorry!  Reverted — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that! FunkMonk (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I have for some time aspired to push Aigialosuchus, a Late Cretaceous crocodylomorph from Sweden, to GA and while the article includes, as far as I know, virtually everything that can be said of the animal, two important details are missing: 1) a size estimate (and an accompanying size comparison image) and 2) why it is classified as a member of the Dyrosauridae. Fossils of Aigialosuchus are fragmentary so it is not surprising that no published size estimates exist, but it feels like one could easily have been made considering one of the fossils is a rather large part of its skull (irritatingly, there are no published measurements of the entire fossil either), they just haven't done one. Including a size estimate in the article would then be original research, right? I assume it would be okay to leave out the size, as in Acamptonectes?

The other issue is that up until ~2015, Aigialosuchus is consistently treated as enigmatic and "probably" an eusuchian, but after ~2015, a whole lot of papers just flat out call it a dyrosaurid (not a group within Eusuchia), but with no reference to where, when and why it was classified as such. I haven't found a single paper which describes why this is. Asking here to see if there have been similar situations in the past or if there is some recommended way to approach this. Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

On the size estimate issue, yeah, you can't write something that has never been published, and that can't be held against you either. I even asked the main author of the Acamptonectes paper if any size estimates would be published in the future, and he said no... I was lucky when I wrote Dromaeosauroides, about the first named Danish dinosaur, that while it was also only named from teeth, the discovery was so famous nationally that size estimates were published, though not in a scientific paper, but in a book about Danish fossils, and in an interview. Don't know if something similar can be found for this one? FunkMonk (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, not sure if the descriptor of Aigialosuchus (Persson) is still active (or alive??? - can't find anything on or by him past the 90s), but perhaps (if nothing else turns up) I could attempt to contact the modern frontrunners of Swedish Cretaceous research and see what's up. I've got two books about Swedish fossils, the first one only briefly touches upon Cretaceous fauna and doesn't go into much detail (Aigialosuchus isn't mentioned) and the second one only brings up invertebrates. It's a shame since there is a lot of cool things found in the Kristianstad Basin that the general public knows next to nothing about since the info rarely makes it out of academia. Ichthyovenator (talk) 18:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Concerning the classification: I would not cite Bachelor or Master theses, I think those are not considered acceptable sources. PhD theses are, however. So it seems to be Kear et al. 2016 who made this claim? Then I would just state that in the article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what level all of the theses are at but do you mean not at all, or just at that place in the article (classification)? If they are unacceptable overall, a lot of the stuff in the article will need to be removed. Ichthyovenator (talk) 18:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I have used master theses at FAC before, though (such as in Kosmoceratops), but I think if you use them, you should make sure in-text that they are just that. And where possible, use published sources that say the same thing. FunkMonk (talk) 19:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I've made an attempt at going about it the best possible way considering the source material at hand and GA nominated; if stuff is in error it'll hopefully be cleared up during the process. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

You appear to have read everything published regarding this beast. I agree that it would be OR/SYNTH to comment on its overall size. As for the classification, my thoughts are: is it conceivable that, around 2015, the definition of one of those two clades was altered? I actually doubt that ever happens, but I would skim over the titles of (taxonomy) literature on Dyrosauridae and Eusuchia (and whichever higher clade connects them) to make certain. Alternatively, did the major researchers around this species have a colloquy of some sort, not publishing the result, but acting on it? I suppose it's allowed to contact these experts in order to to verify such things (primarily by being pointed to any obscure published sources which may exist).--Quisqualis (talk) 21:56, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Those were my thoughts also (about possible changing definitions), but I had a hard time figuring out how to put it to words, so nice job! Because I have seen elsewhere that a clade name is changed in sources that don't deal with a particular species or genus within it, and therefore you would be hard pressed to find a source connecting the two. As an example, the genus Palaeornis was synonymised with Psittacula, hence various species within it ended up in that genus, but there is therefore not a particular source that says one particular species was moved to Psittacula. FunkMonk (talk) 22:05, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

It is likely that the authors of the three sources currently cited in regards to it being a dyrosaurid are in contact with each other since Källsten and Kear are both from Uppsala University and all three authors are active in Sweden. Eusuchia appears to have been last redefined in 1999 by Brochu and I can't find much taxonomic info on Dyrosauridae, but it appears to have consistently been non-Eusuchian for quite some time. If Kear et al (2018) apparently cites Kear et al (2016) for Aigialosuchus being a dyrosaurid then there might really not be anything published about a reclassification. Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

FYI, Kear et al. 2018 cite a dyrosaurid position for Aigialosuchus to their 2016 paper, so I think that'd be the best way to go here too. I think this is just one of those conclusions which gets thrown in a paper without comment (cf. also specimens moved from Similicaudipteryx to Incisivosaurus in a footnote...) Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:07, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

So remove the bachelor's theses entirely? Also, isn't citing your own paper, which doesn't really substantiate anything, in that way a bit strange?? On a sidenote, I don't have access to this paper, does it say anything else relevant about Aigialosuchus? Ichthyovenator (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the thesis doesn't add much. Here's what the 2018 paper says, it's also a throwaway comment:

(Aigialosuchus Persson, 1959; considered a gavialoid or dyrosaurid: Kear, Lindgren et al. 2016, Puértolas-Pascual et al. 2016)

Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 00:05, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Thank you. I've removed both the theses from the article and cited Kear 2016 as the first proper use of Aigialosuchus as a dyrosaur. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• On the subject of lacking sources, I'm nearly done with my expansion of Peloneustes, but I have not found anything in the peer-reviewed literature explaining the etymology. Does anyone know of any good sources for this? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 16:46, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

We have sometimes used dictionaries for such, but may be problematic if it is to find the meaning of combined words... But in theory, you could probably use a (Latin?) dictionary. FunkMonk (talk) 17:00, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

How reliable is this list? I worry that breaking it apart and using a dictionary to define each part of it would count as WP:SYNTH. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 18:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Since it's compiled by Ben Chreisler, who has both published on etymologies, and often writes about them on the dinosaur mailing list, I'd say it's much better than using dictionaries. FunkMonk (talk) 19:43, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding etymology sources, I'm trying to do an overhaul of the article Pteranodon (I know it's a very hard thing to do, but still), and I was looking for etymology sources and happen to stumble upon this dictionary for the name origin, is it reliable enough though? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 17:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Oxford should be reliable, yeah, unless you can find a more "specialised" palaeontology source that says the same. FunkMonk (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Just thought I'd share the most bizarre view spike I've ever seen. Rosamygale is an obscure genus of fossil spider from the early Middle Triassic of France, and is the oldest known member of Mygalomorphae (trap door spiders, tarantulas etc) and is therefore an important phylogenetic calibration point. Prior to December, the article averaged one view per day. Somehow, this very obscure genus of fossil spider ended up featuring in an issue of One Piece, the world's most popular manga. This lead to a view spike during December, which at its peak on the 11th of December reached the absurd value of 31,133 views per day, and the article has received over 122,000 views since the publication of the issue, and still averages around 179 views per day. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Well somebody should probably work on it before the anime catches up and the next mega-viewership wave hits   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Always interesting to see obscure taxa catapulted into the spotlight. I have to wonder how the author heard of this taxon... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh yeah, good opportunity if someone wants to expand it! FunkMonk (talk) 10:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

	Sandbox Organiser A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:28, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

We have loads of random stub articles on tetrapod skull bones, like jugal bone and quadrate bone, and many others on important skull bones like maxilla where human anatomy is the primary focus, and other animals are only incidentally mentioned. I propose the creation of glossary of tetrapod skull bones where each individual bone can be given a more systematic treatment, without focus on human anatomy. Thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

We could expand the non-human section of skull into an independent glossary. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Something needs to be done here, definitely.

• A glossary is one solution, but with multiple glossaries we should have a clear plan/hierarchy. If we have a glossary on skulls, we still would want to have glossaries on all the different clades (e.g., the dinosaur glossary), and this quickly gets redundant. I feel we should have glossaries on the anatomy of clades or on different body parts, but not on both. Maybe we could instead have a Glossary of reptile anatomy (including the skull bones), and a hierarchy of more specialized glossaries below that (such as the dinosaur glossary)?
• I am thinking, however, if articles might be more suitable here. Glossaries focus on the terminology, they are not strong in emphasizing the important points, in teaching anatomy in a systematic way, or describe evolutionary patterns. What about a Anatomy of reptiles article, with a sub-article on the skull? The classical "Osteology of reptiles" by Romer would be an ideal base for such articles. Maybe glossaries and articles can/should supplement each other here.
• The third option I see is to have dedicated "other vertebrates" sections in every human bone article such as maxilla; and if that section gets too long, we could split into sub-articles like maxilla (vertebrates) or something.

We really need a long-term plan I think, where we all agree on. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I probably like the third option the best for most of the skull bones. For those without clear analogues in humans, we can give them their own pages. I've already done so with a few, like postparietal and quadratojugal. I should also note that this issue is not intrinsic to skull bones, as pages like humerus and ilium could also use some expansions for non-human vertebrates. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I also think expanding the general articles to include other animals would be best, otherwise we could potentially end up with multiple glossaries with very similar content. FunkMonk (talk) 18:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, expanding the general articles on the different bones would also be the natural approach. And possibly the easiest, because we can do it step-by-step. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The Life section of the heavily trafficked Pangaea article is badly in need of a rewrite, and also of a more topical focus. At present, it's a not very well sourced mishmash of some evolutionary developments during the time frame between the assembly of Pangaea and its breakup. That's not really needed. However, this section could be interesting and relevant if it focused specifically on how the assembly of Pangaea affected the evolution of life. For example, what kind of ecological niches were created (or destroyed) by its assembly and breakup? How did its assembly affect biodiversity and speciation? Alas, I haven't the references on hand to do a proper job of this. I can dredge up lots of papers investigating various small corners of this topic, but nothing like a good review paper on the topic as a whole. Anyone know of some good sources I could look at?

Since changes to climate are likely a big part of this, I suspect the correct logical flow is to swap the "Life" and "Climate" sections so that the reader will first learn about distinctive climate patterns of Pangaea (megamonsoons? that jumps out from the sources I've dredged) and then read about how that affected the evolution of life.

I've posted the same observation and request at the article talk page, which is where I'll look for responses. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Currently, the Russian Wikipedia is conducting a discussion initiated by me on replacing evolutionary taxonomy with cladistics in the taxonomy of dinosaurs and synapsids, presented in the Automatic taxobox. In ruwiki, a rather strange situation is observed: in the systematics of subgroups of traditional classes presented in Automatic taxobox, cladistics is actively used, but if one of the traditional classes originated from another, then paraphyly of the second class and all its subgroups is allowed, in cladistics including the first class (but at the same time in articles on taxa, cladistic taxonomy is used as the main type of classification). For example, as a result, Avemetatarsalia and all their daughter taxa, cladistically including birds, are marked as extinct, although many of them were never even considered truly extinct. I would be interested to look at similar discussions on the English Wikipedia and find out from what sources the partially ranked cladistic classification is based on. HFoxii (talk) 18:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I totally understand the question, but here we don't mark clades as extinct if their subgroups aren't. Look at the page dinosaur, for example. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I know. The question is mostly about whether there are authoritative sources in which the classification is given, where, for example, Saurischia classified as a unranked clade, and Ornithischia classified as a order (as here). As far as I know, most researchers on fossil vertebrates don't bother about ranks at all. Michael Benton is one of the few who still uses the ranks, and he allows them to be repeated (e.g., he classifies the Class Aves in suborder Theropoda of order Saurischia). UPD: To be honest, I'm also surprised that the idea that taxa that are not extinct should not be flagged as extinct has raised objections. Most likely, this is due to the insane conservatism of the Moscow paleontological school. HFoxii (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Pages devoted to geological units usually have big tables detailing the paleobiota recovered from the unit. Typically, in the image section of these tables, a life restoration of the species in question is shown. However, this practice can lead to inaccurate life restorations cropping up on such pages, and sometimes pictures of different species in the same genus not actually found in the formation. I'm wondering if, perhaps, it may instead be better and more informative to include images of fossils actually found in the formation. I realize that this would be quite a broad, extensive change in many cases, over what may be minor qualms, but I thought that it might good to throw it out here anyways, just to see what others thought. Comments? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 22:10, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I tried to do this some places, but the images later got replaced by restorations. Not sure what the point is. Another issue with those galleries is that they often show images of for example different species in the same genera, or from different formations... FunkMonk (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Tisquesusa the only editor who really did any significant maintenance of geological formation pages aside from myself, has been recently indefinitely blocked for personal attacks. OviraptorFan I noticed regularly added life restorations to Paleobiota tables. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Tisquesusa indeffed? That's news to me. Yikes. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 23:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Yup. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Tisquesusa. Tisquesusa really did not like other editors interfering with his edits, even if they were nonsensical, for instance his regular habit of including nonexistent categories, and would tell people to "fuck off" and much worse. These issues started back in October 2019 and he didn't acknowledge the week then month long block at all, so an indef was the only real option. It's a shame, since aside from his occasional neurotic behaviour Tisquesusa was an enormously productive editor, his massive expansion of the Tendaguru Formation article in particular is impressive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Had no idea, wow. My only personal experience with him, I think, was on the Hatzegopteryx GA, which was... a handful... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Huh, well this is new to me, or maybe not, I remember when finishing the Ornithocheiromorpha GA, Tisquesusa complained about some minor details and about the reviewer himself, so yeah... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• Wow, this got feedback pretty quickly! Since this proposal didn't seem to get negative feedback, I've edited the Tendaguru Formation's tables to show fossils where possible, as it already had many images of fossils in it; any thoughts on this edit? Also, another advantage of fossils is that they usually bypass much of the speculation involved in making life restorations (which occasionally can pose quite a problem, as Spinosaurus has made very clear), and they're more reflective of what actually gets dug out of the rocks. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 01:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

When I was making the Charmouth Mudstone Formation Whitby Mudstone and Blue Lias paleobiota tables I always included the fossils rather than any life restorations anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't think you added this image but I think the placement of the image of inverts is pretty confusing without further explanation. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't really edit these types of articles, but the changes seem good to me. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I was always curious why the paleobiota tables used life restorations rather than fossils. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, though inaccurate life restorations should obviously be excluded. On the topic of Tisquesusa, is anyone else annoyed by their citation format? LSA does not allow for both urls and dois at the same time, and relegating the references to the end of the article makes it really difficult to use in-line citations that are actually directed towards the source in question, rather than a footnote referencing the source. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 21:01, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, Tisquesusa's citation style always bugged me for the exact reasons you describe. Given that he is now indefinitely blocked feel free to revert to the usual citation style. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:11, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I have just created Lists of prehistoric animals, identified as a missing list, but it could do with attention from someone familiar with the subject matter to improve the presentation and sorting. Thryduulf (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Would dinosaur size fit? Granted, the article is a damn mess, but... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:37, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I just added a subsection for pterosaur lists below "land and avian animals" for now, seems fair to keep it more or less uniformed with the "dinosaurs" subsection. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 21:08, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

As you may know, our "20xx in paleontology" articles are regularly updated with research and taxon descriptions from all parts of the paleontological study. From cave art to indeterminate eumetazoans, an ever-changing set of IP's (possibly the same person) adds new publications hours after they become available, and is meticulous enough to update the citation templates with volume numbers, page numbers and even PMC's and PMID's as soon as they are published. But as comprehensive as this is, I noticed that our articles lack most papers from the Argentine journal Ameghiniana. I first noticed this when I saw the entry for Ninjatitan, published in that journal, was added by an "outsider", User:Montanoceratops. Wondering why our anonymous researcher didn't do it, I Google searched "'gen. et sp. nov' site:ameghiniana.org.ar" and found papers and descriptions of taxa that do not appear on Wikipedia. Some, like Amargasaurus, Pitekunsaurus, and Kawanectes are mentioned on their "years in paleontology", but not Hypohippidium humamuaquense, a horse described in 2013. I'm concerned that just by omitting research from that single journal, there might be entire taxa unknown to most of the world. And given that Wikipedia articles have been positively correlated with shaping the direction of scientific research (and that these pages were once praised by the scientists at the Dinosaur Mailing List - sorry, but I couldn't find the link), the course of future paleontological research might be seriously affected. What should we do about this? Atlantis536 (talk) 10:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

It's one guy in Poland with a dynamic IP. That said it's probably best to mention this on the 2021 in paleontology talkpage were the IP is likely to see it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:29, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

A clarification: Hypohippidium was actually described in 1957, I'm not sure why appearing in Ameghiniana as in a more recent date. And by the way, is currently considered as a synonymous of Hyppidion devillei . --Rextron (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and created the article David Peters (paleoartist) because I think that there is enough coverage to satisfy the GNG. I do intend to expand it somewhat, but its an okay start. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it's important to include Peters' background as a (credible) scientific illustrator before his output went off the rails. As it stands, the article's presentation is somewhat biased. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 13:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, he did work with actual palaeontologists back then, and his artwork from the 90s is quite good. I'm not sure if this is quite notable enough, based on the sources. FunkMonk (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

The issue is that the sources don't cover this, and I didn't use Naish's thorough 2012 response to Peters because I think it is a self published source with respect to WP:BLPSPS. I might be able to use Peters own websites for some of this information. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Paleolocation mapping sources lets you enter any time and generates a paleomap. Legal says "Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, Imagery © Mapbox". What do we think about uploading and using these maps?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  07:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

In principal, paleomaps are much needed in Wikipedia. But the OpenStreetMap data are only the modern country boundaries, and I don't think the Mapbox data is under a free license. So I don't think we can copy them. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

When people create paleomaps for papers they either copy Blakey, Scotese or other copyrighted palaeomaps. I don't think adopting a similar approach and simply tracing Blakey's or another copyrightded map is particularly transformative, though. The easiest thing to do would probably be to draw a composite map based on the major Paleomapping programs. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:29, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Would appreciate some more informed input on structuring the category tree in line with correct taxonomy.

See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_March_6#Category:Prehistoric_synapsids

Much obliged! BlackholeWA (talk) 14:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

The recently created Fossil echinoids article is currently on the front page as a DYK. In my opinion the article as it currently stands does nothing to justify its separation from the Sea urchin article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems an odd case. It's like having a separate article about for example fossil birds? FunkMonk (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Came across List of dinosaur specimens with nicknames and the newly created List of non-dinosaur specimens with nicknames. Are these articles really useful? The content feels non-notable, citations are lacking, and there surely must be some overlap with List of informally named dinosaurs for the former. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I've noticed it before, and it seems a bit random, I'm sure there are hundreds of specimens with nicknames, and I'm not sure what the point of listing them is... FunkMonk (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Agree with FunkMonk, pretty pointless to list all these, I'm sure most museums have nicknames for the mounted specimens, not really a point to list all of them. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Pointless, especially the non-dinosaur one, which would technically imply all fossil specimens that aren't dinos, ranging from vertebrate fossils that have nicknames, to even plant fossils (though I don't really know if they have, but it's still pointless either way). JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I just moved the unsourced Draft:List of non-dinosaur specimens with nicknames to draftspace, before seeing this. Editor seems at least willing to source it all, but you might want to engage on their talk page, otherwise it's just going to pop back to mainspace in a bit. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I've noticed that in the project page, there's Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology#Did you Knows..., which appearently is kind of pointless since the last one is from 2014, and I'm pretty sure that there are a ton more DYKs in seven years' time. If we were to list all the DYKs that have been done in the paleo project, it would be an endless list, so there's no point on listing them. In my opinion, the list of DYKs should just be removed. What do u guys think? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 13:33, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No harm if we can find a bot to do this... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 13:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Hm, on second thought maybe we could add a collapsible template to include a columned list? That could be an option... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 14:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There is a bot that can do this: User:JL-Bot/Project content. Plantdrew (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Could Doleorthis be one of the longest-running hoaxes on Wikipedia? The article has remained unsourced ever since its creation in July 2006. It does not seem to appear in any specialised databases. A Google search for "Doleorthis" only yields 57 hits, and the vast majority of them are either this article on Wikipedia or mirrors of Wikipedia. While it is mentioned in Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale, it is only as part of a caption of a stock picture from Alamy, which is hardly a reliable source in palaeontology. Finally, the sole mention of Doleorthis I've been able to find in the scientific literature is its inclusion in a list in an obscure Chinese paper, with absolutely no information beyond this acknowledgement of its alleged existence. It is particularly striking that 1) no information can be found regarding its taxonomic description, taxon author and so on; and 2) every single one of the three external sources that mention Doleorthis were published after the creation of the Wikipedia article. Surely a real taxon would have appeared in the literature before it appeared on Wikipedia, right?--Leptictidium (mt) 09:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

There are some records of this name on Google Scholar and Google Books, but they all seem to be misspellings of the name Dolerorthis, which is most likely what "Doleorthis" actually is.--46.204.3.39 (talk) 14:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Corrected, thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:41, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Nice catch. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Also: four centimetres is two inches, roughly. ~ cygnis insignis 15:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I've instated conversion templates, which convert units automatically. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:12, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Ambulocetus is about to get archived at FAC for a lack of reviews. Pretty please leave comments?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:29, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Didn't realize this was at FAC somehow! I'll see if I can get a review done over the next few days. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 20:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)