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Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhammad Sadiq Malkani. Please participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. As you can see from my post on this talk page, it appears that I have stumbled across a paleontological nomenclature error. I've been trying to get in touch with an expert, but so far without luck. If anyone here could help me, I would much appreciate it. Anonymous 18:23, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen @SlvrHwk: overturn the italicizations of "et al." in Nipponopterus, Ferrodraco, and Mythunga. Most other paleontology articles in Wikipedia use the italicized version of "et al." What is actually the consensus in this case and why? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 09:07, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations, it is not in italics, apparently. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:09, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, alright. I wouldn't say it's such a big of deal anyway. We could just modify them every time we encounter the italicized term while editing. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 09:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"et al." is an abbreviation of the Latin et alii, so it doesn't need to be italicized. Similar to "etc." as an abbreviation of et cetera. "et al." seems to be traditionally italicized on Wikipedia, but I've been (casually) undoing these instances as I come to them. -SlvrHwk (talk) 09:21, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I've also begun changing a few I encountered now that there's some kind of agreement here. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 20:23, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My reading of MOS:ABBR is that it should be italics. The example given for the use of et al puts it in italics (see legal case in MOS:MISCSHORT). The non-italicisation applies to expansion of acronyms and Latin words considered part of English vocabulary (et al is technical rather than standard English like per cent). However, the citation templates don't use italics, so there appears to be some ambiguity.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The example in the MOS is an entirely-italicized legal case name. That doesn't indicate whether or not it should be italicized in other contexts. However, the first column in that table clearly shows it without italics (in contrast to cf. or viz.), and the section MOS:LATINABBR indicates that this formatting should be followed. -SlvrHwk (talk) 09:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed – the legal case is a proper name, and that's why it's in italics, but "et al." is not written in italics according to the MOS. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess de-italicized should now be the standard here then if that's the case? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 20:23, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm honest, I will be continuing to italicize et al. as a technical term in reflection of the majority practice for most taxonomy and paleontology (and science in general I expect) articles. Many of the MOS guidelines and rules were written over 2 decades ago and have never been revisited with more in-depth discussion of how they effect specific disciplines and topic areas (such as the MOS for date ranges which are directly opposite for how deep times dating is written by professionals).--Kevmin § 17:11, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The Morrison Man (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the age of the MOS guidelines has to do with anything. The accepted practice in English (with few exceptions) is to not italicize "et al.". As far as I can tell, most style guides do not require it to be italicized, and it is frequently non-italicized in technical literature. While perhaps not as common as "e.g.", "i.e.", etc., the abbreviation's prevalence in formal writing and the English language (academic and otherwise) makes its italicization as a "Latin phrase" entirely unwarranted -SlvrHwk (talk) 21:38, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have usually grant Nomina dubia their own article (that means, genus names; dubious species names are usually covered within the article of the genus they had been assigned to). This is an obvious choice for historically important ones, such as Zanclodon, Palaeosaurus, Trachodon, or Titanosaurus. This practise also makes sense in general, as these topics cannot really be covered in, e.g., family articles because those have a much broader scope, and adding details on Nomina dubia would clearly be WP:undue. The question is if we should do it always, and consequently so, even when the article cannot really grow longer than two paragraphs (as would be the case with Leptospondylus and Pachyspondylus, for example). I would say yes, at least as long the content cannot be easily added to other articles without causing some sort of problem with undue, balance, length, or readability. And should we apply the same standards to ichnotaxa? Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since they can't be synonymised with anything by definition, and often have very important and complicated histories, I think they should be separate articles in general, as has long been the unwritten norm. Merging them with for example family level articles would swamp those with too specific information. Alternatively there could be a list with short paragraphs for names with very little to write about, but I think what has been doing so far works best. FunkMonk (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given my (often outspoken) inclusionist tendencies, it probably is not surprising that I consider nomina dubina to be notable enough to merit their own articles. A nomen dubium can be viewed as an obsolete scientific hypothesis, which can be perfectly notable (as shown by their plentiful coverage on Wikipedia). The main exception, in my opinion, is for taxa that are technically nomina dubina from a taxonomic standpoint, but are nonetheless more appropriately covered as a subtopic of another taxon, such as Manospondylus being covered as a subtopic of Tyrannosaurus (incidentally, giving your genus a name ending in "spondylus" rarely seems to bode well for it). I suppose it's possible that in some cases, where there is a particularly large number of nomina dubina that share a common theme and would be limited to stub-length articles, it might be appropriate to cover them on a list (e.g. "List of dubious taxa named by author X" or "List of dubious taxa in family Y"), but I can't think of any good examples where that would be necessary offhand. Ornithopsis (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Manospondylus is a great example. I decided to cover the mentioned Leptospondylus and Pachyspondylus within Massospondylus for now, as the situation is very similar to that of Manospondylus, but might create article for some others that currently redirect at Massospondylus. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:56, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the covering of Leptospondylus and Pachyspondylus at Massospondylus fits with what I would do, but Aristosaurus (and maybe Dromicosaurus) would be better as separate articles since they have more substantial history and independent use even when Lepto and Pachy are synonyms of Massospondylus. Similar logic is what I apply to dubious species that are uncertain of their generic identity like Ornithopsis leedsi, where it is covered at the most appropriate genus rather than given its own article even though it is dubious and its generic identity is inconclusive. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to ichnotaxa, I had a concept at one point to congregate all of the ornithopod ichnotaxa (my subject of interest) into a list article since there's so many of them and 95% of them are invalid and have very little information on them. I pivoted to "large ornithopod ichnotaxa" since it's more supported as a genuine unified topic within the literature, but I never User:LittleLazyLass/List_of_large_ornithopod_ichnotaxa and frankly was never sure how it'd be received if I ever did. It's possible this kind of concept could work on a wider scale for ichnotaxa and dubious genera, though the amount of pages for different clades would get quite bloated. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 00:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of ornithopod ichnotaxa, there now seems to be some consensus to accept only three (Iguanodontipus, Caririchnium, Hadrosauropodus), although some authors use two additional ones (Amblydactylus and Ornithopodichnus). So no need for a list in this case I think. Theropod ichnotaxonomy is still a mess though; maybe we should just wait until the stuff has been properly revised. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:40, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that was the impetus, that a lot of them are invalid and don't really all need separate tiny articles. If I recall correctly a lot of them are just considered indeterminate instead of synonyms, and wouldn't necessarily be folded into those three or four articles. Are dubious ichnotaxa not considered valid topics for coverage in the way dubious genera are? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For Amblydactylus and Ornithopodichnus (the latter first described from Jindong Formation), a 2025 publication has considered these ichnotaxa as a nomina dubia, with the latter possibly synonymous with Caririchnium. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-13837-9.00002-0 Junsik1223 (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Following a discussion[1] at WP:Dinoart, grievances about various of the review system's shortcomings have been aired, and I'll try to summarise the proposals discussed there and on the Discord server to get the ball rolling so we can overhaul both review pages. Feel free to point out if there's anything I've overlooked or anything that could be added or improved:

• We need a new or reimplemented system (of the sort we had here[2][3][4]) for marking review sections as in progress so they are kept from being automatically archived until they are reviewed, and only archived when they're either approved or tagged as inaccurate.

• Specify that images have to be approved before being added: "User-made paleoart should be approved during review before being added to articles." - Done

• Specify the general etiquette and mode of discourse, as was just added with this text: "Criticism of restorations should avoid nitpicking of minor subjective or hypothetical details and should be phrased in a way that is respectful and constructive." - Done

• When multiple restorations of the same taxon are submitted, find an unbiased way to choose which one to use. Suggested formulation: "come to a consensus which best reflects and communicates the known data".

• And then the more difficult part: should we have coordinators/delegates with the mandate to enforce and oversee the discussions? And if that is infeasible, who tags the sections as approved/failed etc? FunkMonk (talk) 22:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One major concern from the discord discussion was uneven or random treatment of different art pieces. An extremely high quality piece by Dan might be held up for minor problems in unpreserved areas, whereas a more crude reconstruction with more things to critique may not get any comments at all and go right onto the page. Even standards for critique across all artists regardless of what we expect from them based on their output is necessary. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 22:49, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We just need to formulate that in a way that is implementable and specific. FunkMonk (talk) 22:53, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to add that we shouldn’t give particular artists an implicit or explicit “VIP treatment”. Even if their work is consistent and high-quality, we should try our best to include works from other artists whenever possible so those other artists can have a chance of being on Wikipedia, which upholds the “anyone can contribute” philosophy of the site. 2001:4453:58A:2A00:E48B:67C:50FE:162C (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should not be stated as any sort of policy. The goal is to showcase the most encyclopedic works, and choosing what is most encyclopedic should be up to the editors of the articles to choose from approved works, rather than a part of the image review process. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 22:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wholeheartedly agree with IJReid here. The purpose of the paleoart review process is merely determine whether a given artwork is acceptable to use in an article (and to provide constructive critiques to help artists improve their work until they reach that threshold), not to actually make the decision to use it. Once an artwork is approved, it is then up to the editors of a given article to determine which of the available approved artworks are most suitable for use in that article. Ornithopsis (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I very strongly disagree with this. A "spot" on a Wikipedia page isn't owed to anyone, and if someone is knowledgable and consistently creates informative, useful, and well-researched art, then I see no reason to cast that aside over some concern of over-representation. If legitimate issues can be found with that art then it should be replaced/reworked, of course.

Also, "vagueposting" is generally frowned upon, and none of us are "superfans" of any particular user. Please stop posting things like this or singling out other artists. Thanks! Gasmasque (talk) 03:23, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two revisions I would also like to see is that individual pieces are given their own section instead of subsections, so that the bot can archive more efficiently as we move through approving works. The fewer images to review per section, the shorter we can have the approved works sitting on the page. It also allows for the use of the Template:DNAU to prevent unapproved pieces from being archived due to inactivity, so they are tagged before forgotten about. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:01, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned this on the other page and will definitely be doing this for myself, but I think explicit pass/minor revisions/major revisions/fail votes would be useful to adopt generally as a guideline/policy. Such votes provide a helpful level of structure for targeting and prioritising critiques. It lowers the burden for both the artist and the reviewer. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 03:12, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to add that I think it would be a good idea to emphasize the Wikipedian principle of verifiability in the process of reviewing paleoart. I think it should be best practice for artists to be clear about what the sources for their reconstruction are (e.g. any skeletals or published descriptions used as a basis, and sources supporting any potentially controversial aspects), and likewise for reviews to focus on critiquing aspects that are at odds with published sources, preferably linking to sources that support the critique when relevant. Ornithopsis (talk) 03:58, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the DYK symbols could be coopted to indicate pass, revisions, and fails, instead of informal bolded text? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:22, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if there was some easy way to add them without an entire image template. A shorter "done" template was used in the past, maybe something could be made for more icons:[5] FunkMonk (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if there would be a way to make new sections not be automatically archived as long as they have a specific tag like "under review" or until they get a "passed" stamp, or if the former could automatically be added to a section when it's created. Any ideas, IJReid? FunkMonk (talk) 02:51, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've figured out that there is a way (its how the Taxonomy templates preload their fill-in template). To do it would require a page to reference in the |action=edit&section=new&preload=[Pagename] in the header of the page where the create new section link is. See Template:Taxonomy/sameas, which is where the "fix" button on a broken template preloads to the new page. Fully figuring this out would take a bit more testing, but if we want we could create a full template to autofill for new image submissions. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:16, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was planning to create a new "Welcome" template that can be placed on the talk pages of new users, to direct them to the relevant pages of our WikiProject. But it occurs to me that before I can do that, we have to clean-up. Many of our project pages, in particular the main page, are an outdated, inconsistent, and highly cluttered mess, and probably neither helpful nor attractive for newbies. For a start, I have the following in mind, in no particular order:

• Add "Talk" as second entry to the horizontal project bar, leading to here. Reason: Newbies have difficulty to find that little Talk Page tab, which is inconspicuous above the horizontal project bar. Yet, it is arguably the most important page a newbie needs to know. Well-organized WikiProjects I looked at do this too.

• Create an page called "Inactive pages", listing everything that is not currently in use (which is a lot: dinosaur collaboration, various taskforces, etc. Link that page somewhere. Then, remove all these inactive pages from the project pages. This way we could declutter, so that newbies actually find the useful pages.

• Create a new page "Resources", which contains the template stuff (which is currently cluttering our sidebar on the right) and the "How to find papers" instructions. The latter need to be rewritten. I would reduce them to just the essentials that everyone should know (Google, Google Scholar, Google Books, Internet Archive, Biodiversity library, Paleobiological Database, Wikipedia Library, our internal ref request, Wikipedia Ref request). All of these with helpful explanation. I would also add Openverse [6] as an option to find freely licensed images. A "resources" page is common in other WikiProjects.

• Create a page "Recognised Content", updated by bot, listing all FAs, GAs, and DYKs. On our mainpage we currently list the DYKs but not the FAs and GAs, and the DYKs have not been updated since 2014 (!)

• Create a page "Guidelines" for the guidelines that are currently listed on the main page in a rather unorganised way. Probably those need to be updated, have to discuss them separately at some point.

• Create a entirely new page "Article guide", just with tips on how to write paleo articles.

• Remove things that we don't really need. Do we really need the section Vandal fighting, which is not specific to our WikiProject and way too simplistic to be of any use? The entire "Review" section is redundant now, too.

• Redo the "Tasks" section. This is very useful to point newbies to, to give them inspiration what to work on. It does not need to list a lot of examples, but it has to be diverse (e.g., expand stubs; update articles; create new articles where needed; review articles, copy edit, find/correct errors, review at paleoart review, article assessment, welcome new users, important articles that are in poor shape, etc.)

• Have the Discord link somewhere more prominently, and with better explanation

• Update everything, in general (e.g., in the participants list, move users to the "inactive" section that haven't been active for a year, and I would also remove that section of "Banned members" which seems strange.

Thoughts on these? Any other suggestions? If you agree that something should be done, I would be happy to work on it – after we have reached a consensus on what needs to be done. Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think all of these ideas make sense. It's been some time since the Dino wikiproject was revamped and this one is even older. Perhaps some of these things (recognized content, tasks, article guide) can be lifted from the other project with modifications since similar scope, to make it a bit less new work overall. All these suggestions seem justifiable and good to me. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:00, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with the Dino Wikiproject is, in my opinion, that it is mostly redundant nowadays: We have a number of dinosaur people, but they seem to be integrated in the Palaeontology Wikiproject, while the Dinosaur Wikiproject does not seem to have a separate community anymore. Consequently, the Dinosaur project pages become increasingly neglected, and nothing is happening on the talk except for some cross-postings from the Palaeo project. My worry is that some newbies will get stranded there, loose interest because of apparent inactivity, and never make it here. We somehow need to make it clear that the dinosaur project is just a spin-off, and the palaeo project is the place to go. But I'm not sure how to do that. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could the Dinosaur project be classed as a taskforce of the Paleontology project instead? That would make WP:PALEO the clear stop for discussion and information. The Morrison Man (talk) 13:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support that. Need to see if we can get a consensus for such a drastic change though. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My kneejerk reaction is to oppose demoting it from WikiProject status, but I admit that's probably more emotional attachment than anything sensible. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 17:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We probably should first try to update the Dino Project, remove the redundant parts, and place prominent links to the most relevant Palaeo Project pages. Maybe also a "See also" at the talk page to point to the Palaeo talkpage. That could solve it already. But let's do the Palaeo project first. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think what you're proposing is sensible. The project pages desperately need an update. I might go ahead and update the members list soon, so that that is up to date at least. If the Discord gets a more prominent place on the pages of the project, I'll also go ahead with some maintenance and updates that I've been putting off there. The Morrison Man (talk) 13:37, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would be fantastic if you could take care of the members list! And regarding Discord, I was also thinking about placing it directly on the new welcome template that I plan to make, as it might lower the bar for some folks to start contributing. Looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, they even have, uggh, Facebook and Twitter links there, so I see no issue with advertising the Discord server a bit more. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The members list has been updated, although I don't think all active editors are on there either. The Morrison Man (talk) 16:45, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not on there, I guess … Will add myself now. And thanks! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Looks good, only thing I'll add is that while the paleoproject was originally a spin-off of the dinosaur project, it does seem to have become the main place for discussion, with basically the same users and policies anyway. So while I think I and most others objected last time a merger was proposed (can't find the discussion), it currently seems more feasible. Most of the guidelines, sections and sub-pages are duplicates anyway (and slapped together over years and years), so a more focused redo makes sense. FunkMonk (talk) 20:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This would also be a prime opportunity to revise and update those guidelines if and where necessary, in my opinion. The Morrison Man (talk) 20:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I still think it makes sense to keep the dinosaur and regular paleoart review pages separate because of the sheer amount of submissions each get these days, but perhaps they should be linked from the same place instead of from two different pages. FunkMonk (talk) 01:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the new {{Paleospecies table}} and {{Paleogenus table}} templates can be listed in the relevant sections about lists and templates? Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 05:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SilverTiger12: Just add it to Templates, I would say. But are these tables specifically for mammals? Parameters like "length", "height", and "weight" wouldn't work for, let say, plants, right? The name "Paleospecies table" implies that this is for all taxa, so maybe an example how to use it for fossil plants or insects could be useful? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am no expert at making templates, so much of the original code I used was taken from PresN's {{Species table}}, which has been used in lists of extant mammals, reptiles (List of crocodilians) and birds (List of sunbirds). Since I made Paleospecies table to basically be a parallel of it, it should work for reptiles, birds, and other animals too. If people become interested and ask I will look into expanding mine to handle more variations, as Species table has been so expanded.

But no, I don't think either of mine will work for plants (well, maybe paleogenus with no-ecology=yes....). Plant species would need a parallel of {{Plant species table}}... which, looking at it, I might be able to do if someone asks for it. Or one could just use the existing plant species table by putting the geologic range in the distribution parameter with the geographic range. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 23:04, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. But why three separate size parameters (length, height, weight) instead of a single general "size"? "Height" only works for some mammals, but does not make sense for cetaceans or crocodiles, for example, and we normally don't have that information for dinosaurs either. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because my brain likes being specific about things. Any one or two of those parameters can be left blank, though. SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we possibly want to add a "Goals" subpage (see WP:DRWHO/G for example) to lay out some pipe dreams of Good and Featured Topics? I'm willing to fill out some GT boxes at request. SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some subtopics within Human evolution are probably close if not there already. CMD (talk) 12:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that goals could be a good idea in general. But particular good/featured topics are a quite narrow goals, and will only make sense if there are dedicated editors who want to work on precisely those, right? Genera of Spinosauridae are pretty close to good or featured topic status, but at the moment we do not have a spinosaur specialist to finish the job. Because our scope here is much broader than that of WP:DRWHO, maybe those would be more fitting for a task force? The Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine has some more broader, project-wide goals (e.g., improve all Top-importance articles at B-class or above; reduce the number of stubs to xx%). Maybe goals like these would be better because everybody in the project could participate? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably be better to base our goals off those of WikiProjects with similar, broader scopes like WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Military History, which has most of its project organisation in excellent shape. Like you suggest, getting a specific number or percentage of articles above a certain quality would probably be a good way to go about this. Checking through the list under quality content on the project page, our current buildup solely including articles (not lists, templates, categories, etc.) is as follows:

All articles: 22803 (100%)

Featured Articles: 123 (0,54%)

Good Articles: 257 (1,13%)

B-class Articles: 678 (2,97%)

C-class Articles: 1803 (7,91%)

Start-class Articles: 5421 (23,77%)

Stub-class Articles: 14521 (63,68%)

Currently we have 123 FA, 257 GA and 678 B-class articles. If I had to set a goal based off that, it would be a nice ambition to (roughly) double these numbers, so perhaps a goal of 250, 500 and 1000 could be good? Adding more high-quality content and improving low-quality content go hand in hand, so reduction of stubs (and starts, to a lesser extent) is also a good goal to set. For reducing the number of stubs, keeping that under 20% sounds like a nice goal to me, even though they currently make up nearly 65% of paleo articles. Reducing this to 20% in its current state would require work on some 10000 articles, however, so that might be a touch idealistic. Perhaps bringing it down to 50% first? (that would require work on ~3000 articles). The Morrison Man (talk) 13:26, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We could try working on a priority list, if people are interested (and invested) enough. There is also a lot of paleontology articles that have not been quality reviewed since their first few edits. A lot of the stubs are in reality start-class, and a lot of the start-class could be C or B-class without much work. Larrayal (talk) 14:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like there is considerable interest in setting up project goals. Unless someone else wants to take it over, I could compile a preliminary list of goals as a starting point that we can then discuss and improve? We could maybe try to have a set of diverse goals to get everyone on board here and give some inspiration, including stubs, creation of missing articles, images (maybe even "include more 3D models"), revision and approval of old FAs promoted before 2013, and, why not, reaching a particular number of good/featured topics (we seem to have four at the moment)? And yes, the goals should be realistic and doable (we can always define new ones once we reached a goal). And, as Larrayal pointed out, proper rating of all articles could be a goal for itself, too. Not all of these are easy to monitor, though. Alternatively, we could stick to goals that relate to article levels (improving stubs, getting more GAs, etc.). What do you think? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We already have the Open Tasks page btw (Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Tasks), which already kind of has a diverse set of goals. I see two options: 1) If we are going to have a diverse set of many goals, we could replace that page. 2) If we just want very few, article-level focused goals that are easy to monitor/track, we can define them in addition to the "Open Tasks" on the main page, with nice progress bars, such as in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history for example. Maybe I prefer that second option now. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My idea was aimed more at getting sets of articles improved rather than abstract numbers- a discrete goal where progress can be easily seen. Something that could give focus to editors who might otherwise have choice paralysis. Therefore, I would make boxes for 1 or 2 clades of the following: fish, amphibians, reptiles, (non-avian) dinosaurs, avians, mammals, [indeterminate number of invertebrates, etc] as well as (based on Hemiauchenia's suggestion on Discord) three boxes for the time periods of the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:13, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I'm not fully convinced here – how many editors with choice paralysis do we actually have? Our past attempts (e.g., the dinosaur collaboration) have shown that editors are unlikely to work on articles that someone else selected. The choice of boxes would also be arbitrary, or on what would you base your selection on? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at those numbers, doubling the number of FAs from around 0.5% to 1% seems like an attainable long term goal for the project. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since a majority appeard to be in favour of a set of goals, I implemented this now: Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology. All progress bars are updated automatically. Only the last one, the old-FA revisions, have to be updated manually. This should not be a big deal since its only 25 articles. All of these 25 old FAs are dinosaurs except one, which is Deinosuchus. Your feedback is needed. What needs to be changed? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:04, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I had to move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Tasks for now, as it didn't like that project bar on the right, destroying the layout at large font sizes. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to put up an easily-accessible list of those 25 articles Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. Next, we have to re-do the "Open Tasks" (Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Tasks), and there we could add instructions for the individual tasks to provide some guidance. Obviously, rework of old FAs should be one of the tasks (we decided last year that this should be an important focus), and we could include the list in the respective instructions. An own page just for that list seems a bit overkill. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The separate page is also problematic because it makes it harder for those who are unaware that it is a transcluded page to locate and edit the proper location to sign themselves up for the tasks. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@IJReid: What do you mean? The page is transcluded where? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually mistaken and thought the Tasks page was transcluded onto this main page. It is not. Which makes it even harder for new members to navigate to the task list to sign themselves up. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The participants list is also on a separate page; do you think that both should be placed on the main page directly, or just the tasks signup? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think being on the main page makes it the most accessible. I think that makes it more desirable to have it there. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 19:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• After thinking about it a bit more, I came to believe that one of the goals – the creation of 30.000 articles – is not sensible. First, this might encourage an overzealous editor to create one-sentence stubs en mass to reach that goal, and while such one-sentence stubs are not necessarily problematic, I think they would not be meaningful when it comes to measuring progress of the WikiProject as a whole. Second, the improvement of stubs to a higher level is key priority elsewhere in Wikipedia, and our goals do not reflect that. Third, I looked at numerous other WikiProjects by now, and none had such a goal, a further indication that it is just bad. To solve these issues, I changed the fourth goal to "20,000 articles rated Start-class or better". New articles do still count – but only when they are better than stub, and improvement from stub to start counts equally. 61.4% of our articles are currently stubs, although it might in fact be less because ratings have to be updated. I made this suggested change already so that you can see how that would look, but happy to restore the old version if you think it was better. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:56, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  For what it's worth, Palaeontology does have way more of a redlink problem than most other topic areas on Wikipedia. So I could see some logic in promoting article creation, though I see the points against measuring it in straight up article count. Perhaps just a note that making redlinks into start-classes is especially encouraged? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 05:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Not sure if we really have more missing articles than others (looking at, e.g., List of Asteraceae of South Africa). But if you prefer the original goal because it more directly targets article creation (including stubs), I will revert to that. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to start a new section here to present some things I think fall under the scope of "revamping the project": a reduction in the excess of pages to help consolidate content into better formatted and more useful articles. Not taxonomic, those discussions are being held elsewhere, but some "accessory" list articles or pages. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal one: Merge "Years in paleontology" articles before 1800 into centuries. So 1600-1699 becomes 17th century in paleontology and 1700-1799 becomes 18th century in paleontology, following the precedent at List of years in science and allowing for a clearer distinction of when the study of paleontology (sensu Cuvier, Blainville, Lyell) truly begins, around the end of the 1790s and start of the 1800s. Anything before 1600 is probably best in the years in science pages, since the ideas of earth having geologic change and fossils being extinct weren't really concepts yet.

Prpopsal two: Redirect the "Timeline of _ research" (eg. Timeline of dromaeosaurid research) articles into their respective taxonomic pages. Between the Years in paleo articles, and the taxonomic pages, all the content should be covered and does not need to be duplicated elsewhere. Papers of the year and new taxa are covered in Years of articles, removing the need for additional lists.

As a side note, this would also likely result in the deletion of all the categories eg: Category:Timelines of theropod research which also helps is reduce unnecessary pages. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 01:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support for both proposals. No notes, except that I would also suggest the merging of pages like Lists of prehistoric animals because we have consolidated all the paleo-related lists into one place. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support on both. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:33, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Abyssal:, courtesy ping as they created the example list in proposal two. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:57, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We finished the revamped projects page for open tasks! It is already open for sign-up (please add your names!), but everything is open for discussion, and feedback is greatly appreciated. We added some documentation to most of the tasks, to give newbies some guidance at hand. One earlier suggestion was to place the whole thing on the project main page instead of having it on a separate page. Please let us know your suggestions! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With the tasks page now expanded, I don't think it needs to be featured directly on the main project page. I have wondered if paleoart and other images are part of the same task, perhaps the division is between creating new media versus finding and uploading freely-licensed media? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:55, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Paleoart" is everything that goes through the review, and "uploading and adding images" are your own photographs of fossils or whatever you find on the web. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The suggested Writing tips page is live now, too. This already got some feedback via the Discord, but more comments are more than welcome. With this, the WikiProject revamp is essentially complete; only the new "Welcome" template has still to be created (which will happen shortly), and the Guidelines may have to be updated (for example, there were some calls for introducing guidelines for the creation of new lists and categories). The Paleontology portal and the WikiProject Dinosaurs still need attention. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Homo#Merge_proposal. Please participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Paleontology, has not been seriously updated in years [9]. It still gets around 60 views every day [10], so I think it's at least worth trying to spruce it up a bit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• We should either update it or delete it (many other portals have recently been deleted). If we update it, we could add an entry to advertise the WikiProject (as done in, e.g., Portal:Medicine). We should also make a more diverse content selection, as it's mostly dinosaurs at the moment. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There is also the Dinosaurs portal that is in the similar discussion. And whether it should be separate or not is something to consider. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There was an extensive effort to clean up redundant clade pages for dinosaurs, and I think that pterosaur articles could be well served by a similar effort. There's a seriously bloated amount of pterosaur clades and some that have longstanding short articles are not as biologically relevant or widely used as others. These would be my personal personal proposals:

• Caviramidae has only been used as a clade by one author, Matthew Baron, and heavily overlaps in taxic content with the alternative more common hypothesis of Eopterosauria. So I think it may be more neutral to just discuss the topic there instead of presenting a fringe concept as the primary taxonomy as linked on the main pterosaur page. I honestly kind of question if Raeticodactylidae is in need of an article either, much how Preonodactylia lacks one; the clade seems scarcely used and question if anything worthwhile could truly be written about the clade that wouldn't fit easily in the Eopterosauria article. Eudimorphodontidae is a similarly small but much older clade so there should be enough literature to support it.
• Novialoidea is used to a reasonable degree in the literature, but seems like a pretty arbitrary node-based clade we've been targetting for deprecation. I'm not all that sure how stable Campylognathoides is anyways. I think a Breviquartossa page might honestly be more useful in terms of evolution and robust as a node if we really want a dividing line for taxobox purposes. Of note, Scaphognathinae might be due a separate article given its tendency to be recovered apart from the rest of Rhamphorhynchinae...
• I've already boldly merged Caelidracones as the instability of Anurognathidae between basal Novialoidea and basal Monofenestrata makes it completely unviable as a step in the chain of taxoboxes and its subject matter essentially entirely plastic as a topic.
• There is no need for three separate articles for Archaeopterodactyloidea, Euctenochasmatia, and Ctenochasmatoidea, which are all extremely close to being the same topic. I'd suggest all three be merged into the first article, but the second at the bare minimum needs to go. The Martill and Vivodec result where the former clade includes a wider scope is a fringe result, and could be handled in the text fine anyways; there is no ambiguity what the term means within pterosaur literature.
• Eupterodactyloidea and Ornithocheiroidea are nearly identical terms, and both node based clades that do not merrit articles apart from Pterodactyloidea in the slightest.
• Pteranodontoids are an awkward case. Ornithocheiriformes would be a far more stable node than Ornithocheirae and there would be more sensible in terms of uniting similar animals under one article with plenty of content potetential, but has less usage due to its recent coining (though it's seemingly catching on fast). Ornithocheirae occasionally collapses into a far more restrictive clade than we're using it as, though our contents are the prevailing result. Anhangueria is a far more used clade than either, but I don't very much sense in it being an article in addition to the whole group and I would suggest it be merged. Then there is Ornithocheiridae and Anhangueridae, which are essentially one topic but are hard to justify as a single article and definitely cannot simply exist as one or the other. Complete mess, but I'd suggest at least merging Anhangueria if we make no other changes.
• Tapejaroidea is another pretty random node based clade that sees little biological application. The phylogenetic model we're using it for is also not universal regardless. I would strongly encourage merging this one up to Pterodactyloidea as well.
• I'm not sure why Tapejaromorpha really mandates an article as an extremely similar topic to Tapejaridae itself. Surely the thalassodromid issue would have to discussed at the latter regardless, so I'm not seeing much in terms of distinct content for the former, and its equivalent in Azhdarchomorpha doesn't have its own article for similar reasons.

Open to feedback on which of these merges would be good, or if any others are necessary. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 03:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Within Pterodactyloidea I'm thinking a very simple structure. Four smaller clades for Archaeopterodactyloidea, Azhdarchoidea, Pteranodontia, and Ornithocheiromorpha. All clades above the family-level would be merged up to one of those five articles. Above Pterodactyloidea, Monofenestrata is an obvious candidate for an article to remain (as an apomorphy-based clade AFAIK), but I have no other opinions. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 07:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Summarizing a discord exchange between me and Cynical Idealist, an article between Pterosauria and Monofenestrata is deemed unnecessary, and the preferred model for pteranodontoids is to have an article for Pteranodontoidea, one for Pteranodontia, and one for Ornithocheiromorpha, given the distinctiveness and scale of the two subgroups combined with the status of the whole group as a major division of Pterodactyloidea. Thus, the list of articles above the family level (as well as Dimorphodontia and Targaryendraconia) would be: Pterosauria, Eopterosauria, Monofenestrata, Pterodactyloidea, Archaeopterodactyloidea, Pteranodontoidea, Pteranodontia, Ornithocheiromorpha, and Azhdarchoidea. All other "inbetween clades" are deemed best covered within any of the above articles due to lack of biological significance, extent of literature usage, lack of stability, or a combination of the above factors. This would cut down the number of "large clade" articles by 10, or about half, which would result in a significant increase in clear navigability and attainability of article improvement as well as make it significantly easier for Wikipedia to remain neutral on pterosaur nomenclature and phylogeny. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Worth mentioning is that the internal classification of Azhdarchoidea is very uncertain. The affinities of tapejarids with dsungaripterids and thalassodromids remains highly contentious and uncertain. Tapejarids may be the sister group of thalassodromids or dsungaripterids and thalassodromids might be closely related (etc, etc). Implementing these merges will also serve the purpose of maintaining the neutrality of Wikipedia in the realm of problematic taxonomy. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 08:59, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a good place to start so I'm in support of it. We will be able to see better how things look after these are completed. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've made an outline of what we agreed on, just so we can have it all listed out. If anyone has modifications or objections, feel free to add them. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 21:50, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Pterosaur (merge Novialoidea)
  • Eopterosauria
  • Monofenestrata (no merges necessary)
    • Pterodactyloidea (merge Eupterodactyloidea, Ornithocheiroidea, and Tapejaroidea) Done
      • Archaeopterodactyloidea (merge Euctenochasmatia and Ctenochasmatoidea) Done
      • Azhdarchoidea (merge Tapejaromorpha) Done
      • Pteranodontoidea
        • Pteranodontia
        • Ornithocheiromorpha (merge Ornithocheirae and Anhangueria) Done

The only thing I'd note is that I think Targyarendraconia makes more sense to keep as one article, rather than giving ones to the two constituent families. There's not much to say about either individually, unless we want to cover them all at Ornithocheiromorpha I guess, which I'm not strictly against but they might get a bit lost in all that scope. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 22:59, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We'll just treat it as a family-level article then and leave it as-is. I have no strong feelings on the matter. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 00:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted the appropriate notices and merge proposals on the relevant pages and talk pages. I'll begin work on Azhdarchoidea soon, unless someone else specifically wants to do that one. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:03, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support most. Tapejaroidea would be better merged with Azhdarchoidea, as it is basically considered a synonym of it if Dsungaripteridae is included within Azhdarchoidea (e.g. Andres, 2021). I think Ornithocheiroidea and Ctenochasmatoidea should stay, they're both well-established and historically significant groups that are always mentioned in pterosaur classification. The rest is good. JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ornithocheiroidea may be historical, but a large part of that is due to its former usage as a different name for what is now generally called Pteranodontoidea (something that can obviously be covered there). I am not convinced the node of pteranodontoids and azhdarchoids has any business being an article, not the least because that wasn't even historically recognized as a clade (with older models preferring a grouping of azhdarchoids and archaeopterodactyloids). As for Ctenochasmatoides, I agree it is a prominent name but it is unfortunately just not distinct as a topic from Archaeopterodactyloidea. Besides a small handful of genera the only difference is germanodactylids, and nobody can agree if that's even where they go anyways. Even Witton condensed the entire group into a single section in his book on pterosaurs back on 2013, they're one topic. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Following a recent paper, it has been proposed that Gastornis be split, resurrecting Diatryma (as well as possibly Zhongyuanus, see Talk:Gastornis#Rejection_of_synonymy_with_Diatryma_by_Mayr_et_al._(2024). Please participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The new "Welcome" template can be found at Template:PalWelcome. Any thoughts and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

How to use:
{{subst:PalWelcome}} --~~~~
{{subst:PalWelcome|article=Conodont}} --~~~~
{{subst:PalWelcome|article_italics=Opisthocoelicaudia}} --~~~~

The optional parameters "article" or "article_italics" (if genus or species) can be used to refer to a particular article the user has contributed to.

Please consider welcoming new users whenever you encounter them. It really makes a difference. It does not matter if you use this template or a personal message. If you welcome a user, make sure to watch their talk page as they may have questions. Thanks. Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was mentioned offhandedly in the discord server that there are very few pterosaur stubs, so I got curious how hard exactly it would be to expand them all to at least start-class and leave us without a single stub-class article across the entire clade. As it turns out, articles are still tracked as a tag under the Paleo WikiProject, and there are indeed very few pterosaur-tagged articles assessed as stubs. In addition, several of them should obviously be merged, removed from pterosaur tagging, or reassessed as start-class. I've categorized them below:

Removal, Reassessment or Merging

• Caviramidae (proposed for merging in above section)
• Haenamichnus (looks like a start-class already)
• Jizera Formation (untag)
• Monster Planet of Godzilla (contains Rodan; untag)
• Ornithocheirus buenzeli (merge)
• Pterosaur Beach (merge with a formation?)
• Triradiate pelvic girdle (merge to archosaur)
• Tropeognathinae (merge to Anhangueridae)

Genera

• Amblydectes
• Draigwenia
• Jianchangopterus
• Otogopterus Done
• Qinglongopterus
• Versperopterylus

Clade

• Rhamphorhynchidae
• Anhangueridae
• Hamipteridae
• Mimodactylidae
• Targaryendraconia

Ichnotaxa

• Agadirichnus
• Pteraichnus
• Purbeckopus

Unclear

• Belonochasma (former pterosaur; untag?)
• Raeticodactylidae (potentially merge?)
• Rhabdopelix (former pterosaur; untag?)

If there any articles that should be in this list but are either untagged or wrongfully assessed as start-class or higher, do reply with them here and fix as appropriate. I think it would be realistic goal to expand them all just to start-class (or ideally B-class), especially once we root out all of the ones from the first section. Personally I'd like to work on Amblydectes and Draigwenia when I get the time, but feel free to go for any of the other ones if interested in the effort (or else I'll try to get through them over time). Of note is that Hamipteridae and Mimodactylidae are two-genera families that could be good Featured Topic candidates, especially with Mimodactylus already there. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 05:58, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've expanded Otogopterus. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 08:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As main editor on Pterosaur Beach, I don't see much issues merging it with a formation, but it's a translation and the original french article has been massively expanded upon since a few years ago. I think the site belongs to the Cazals Formation - another stub - but the site is probably the most noteworthy thing there. Not a strong oppose, but wether we choose to keep it or merge it, the content will not change much. Should also be untagged, like Jizera Formation. Support untagging the former pterosaurs and all clade merging susmentioned. Larrayal (talk) 14:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should stay a separate article, as it is clearly notable. Will try to add something to get rid of the stub label when time allows. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:03, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anhangueridae is a start-class article, I re-rated it the other day. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 21:17, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings everyone. I'm making this request because after much research and editing, it seems that there is a name that comes up a lot in articles about marine animals that lived in the Western Interior Seaway. This paleontologist is known for having written two volumes of a book on this sea as well as numerous excellent articles on these animals, not hesitating to work with renowned authors such as Kenneth Carpenter. Obviously, I am not asking to write a biographical article in the style of that of Edward Drinker Cope, but I think that the individual deserves to receive his own article just for his sources being of very sufficient quality for this could happen. I nevertheless remain open if there is an opposing opinion. Amirani1746 (talk) 21:50, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:BIO: I'm sure you could find plenty of secondary literature on Oceans of Kansas but I don't know about Everhart himself. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:48, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've just had a brief discussion with Anteosaurus magnificus regarding the desirability and handling of minimal stubs for individual paleospecies in recent genera. It has been my understanding that we essentially Don't Create Those, for the various reasons laid out at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Guidelines#Which articles should be created. It followed on me redirecting to genus a number of one-sentence, one-source stubs on extinct larks in recent lark genera.

The editor states that they have created hundreds of these stubs over the last half year, which seems to be the case. For a sample, I am listing the ones they named on my talk page: Aegypius jinniushanensis, Aegypius prepyrenaicus, Falco antiquus, Oryctolagus lacosti, Struthio kakesiensis, Struthio coppensi, Vombatus hacketti, Gazella harmonae, Pongo weidenreichi. These range from several one-source/one-sentence types to Pongo weidenreichi, which at least has a respectable bibliography.

I have been quite vocal in the recent past regarding the benefits of having recent species stubs (and now we've finally got that enshrined in WP:NSPECIES), but I believe that the crucial distinction to paleospecies stubs has always been the much lower chance of expansion of the latter. Basically these have been treated on the basis that if you can expand it to a size where a standalone article makes sense, go ahead and do so; but we don't produce them on spec, as placeholder stubs or hopeful redlinks. My take is that if that interpretation is correct, then we should be consistent in redirecting stubs to genus/higher taxon; if not, then we shouldn't have the relevant guideline (at least not phrased as currently). A guideline that is only spottily enforced will at the very least lead to wasted effort. - Some input would be useful here. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My take here is that we need to make a distinction between fossil genera and living genera. Species of fossil genera are often best covered in the context of the genus article (even though, in many cases, there is plenty to write about a fossil species). But articles on living genera have a completely different (non-palaeo) scope: if we add significant information on particular extinct species to, e.g., Falco, that would create undue weight per WP:PROPORTION. We therefore need a separate article. I would say keep those stubs, because they can be easily expanded, while the information cannot be added to the Falco articles without creating this undue weight problem. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jens that extinct species of extant genera should be treated differently - perhaps worth a mention in the guidelines. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:17, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extinct species of extant genera have a notable amount of information that is not covered, and should NOT be covered in an extant genus article. Elmidae take a look at the extinct species articles I have written on Neoephemera antiqua, Carpinus perryae, Dennstaedtia christophelii, and Equisetum thermale. If we include all the information that is nearly always includable in the age, distribution, paleobiology/paleoecology, and history of description sections, articles like Ginkgo and Elephas would be overwhelmed. Merge up should only be happening when there is a relevant significant rank/clade above the species that is also extinct, nearly always a genus.--Kevmin § 17:26, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I wouldn't have pegged all paleospecies in extinct extant genera as "easily expandable". Doubtless some are, and should be expanded accordingly, but the assumption behind such stubs is that all are - which is the consideration we extend to recent species. I'd be surprised if this was the case. However, as with NSPECIES, I guess an abundance of at least theoretically expandable stubs does not hurt the encyclopedia, so fine by me. - We should make this a clear distinction in the guideline then. That should also include an explicit note on species redlinks, which we are not entertaining for species in extinct genera, but would, by extension, want for these. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:45, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I missed something in reading the comments here, no one said extinct species in extinct genera should be easily expanded. Did you mean extinct species in extant genera? If so, the aspect that makes ALL extinct species in an extant genus expandable is the discussion of type specimens, repositories, who/when collected, the geologic formation, the paleorange, the paleoecology of the species and formation they are from. these are all aspects that are frequently quite distinct from the modern counterparts. Discussion of the range alone sets Hymenophyllum axsmithii from its modern counterparts.--Kevmin § 19:17, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, typo; fixed.

I see - not that species in extinct genera would not have that information; but with those we would cover it in the genus article, and that doesn't work well with extant genera articles, which are full of extant biology. 'Tis well considered, guvnor. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the general consensus on here is that extinct species of extant genera should have their own separate articles from the article about their genus, do I have the green light to revert the redirects of Daphoenositta trevorworthyi, Uria onoi, Lullula slivnicensis, Lullula balcanica, Melanocorypha donchevi, Melanocorypha serdicensis, and Eremophila prealpestris? Or would you prefer to do so yourself? Anteosaurus magnificus (talk) 10:49, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go ahead and revert the lot. All: To clarify this approach in the guidelines, I have added the following sentence to the page: Extinct species placed in extant genera should normally receive separate articles, since fossil-specific information such as taphonomy, site geology, repositories, collectors, paleorange and paleoecology cannot easily be covered in the genus article. - Please feel free to edit as desired. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After months of tinkering, I have finally finished making and revising the {{Paleospecies table}} and {{Paleogenus table}}. Both templates are intended to make it easier to write and format taxonomic lists of prehistoric species and genera, respectively. They are palaeontological equivalents of {{Species table}} (example) and {{Animal genera table}} (example). Happy editing! SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Dromaeosauriformipes May I request if anyone could possibly review this draft of Dromaeosauriformipes I made? It's the first time I've ever attempted to actually make an article in Wikipedia, so I'd like to know if it can be established as an actual article or needs improvement. Junsik1223 (talk) 06:04, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally looks good but the prose is a bit inaccessible (e.g. a casual reader will not understand "didactyl"). Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Maybe I should include "(two-toed)" next to the word didactyl in the intro for clarity. Junsik1223 (talk) 17:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "(two-toed)" works well. I think the article is well-written and clear. To further improve it, you could add how Dromaeosauriformipes is distinguished from Dromaeosauripus. You could also add more context to help the reader understanding the text; for example you could briefly explain why the tracks are didactyl and how that relates to deinonychosaurians. Also note that the "trot" is a quadrupedal gait; it does not apply to bipeds (simply use "fast gait"). There are more publications on this thing coming soon I believe, so watch out for those. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:52, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've edited the article based on your suggestion. I'll also look forward to those new publications. Junsik1223 (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=13177144870967294170&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2025

If any of my fellow wikipedians have access to this, or at least now what the animal described by them is, then please add it to this page and tell me.

(Copied from the Talk page of List of Ediacaran genera) Abdullah raji (talk) 13:15, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have access either but the abstract Hughes et al (2024) says Here, we describe Uncus dzaugisi gen. et. sp. nov. from the Ediacara Member (South Australia), a smooth, vermiform organism with distinct curvature and anterior-posterior differentiation. ... Body morphology and the inferred style of movement are consistent with Nematoida, providing strong evidence for at least an ecdysozoan affinity. They seem fairly confident it is ecdysozoan , probably a nematoid.

There's also a press release (Tiny worm makes for big evolutionary discovery) and a commentary (Ediacaran Nematode-Like Worm Fossils Unearthed in Australia).  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We've already had an article on it since November. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah honestly it seems I was just confused. Abdullah raji (talk) 14:51, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anyone with the ability to merge page histories that can clean up the cut-paste move reversion that Bubblesorg did on Sequoia dakotensis? The first half of the page history is at Sequoites dakotensis but the second half is now at Sequoia dakotensis. The article will preferably to end up at Sequoites dakotensis given that while genus placement is divided in the literature between the two, recent papers/books are in agreement that the taxon actually belongs to Parataxodium and it will eventually need a redescription and genus update. While we wait its better to have the article at the cupressaceous form genus rather than the orthotaxon. Thanks!-- Kevmin § 23:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

yeah, thats a good question. I could try sometime today to clean it up. --Bubblesorg (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bubblesorg we need someone that has the tools to perform page history merges.--Kevmin § 15:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you tried asking some people, did they get back? --Bubblesorg (talk) 00:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently saw IJReid had redirected the life restoration categories of lambeosaurines to their parent genus categories on Commons, whereas most other genera have their restorations in a separate category. I don't think a subcategory is needed when it's only three or so images, but in this case we're talking a lot more[11][12][13], which I think swamps the parent category and makes it harder to find what you need, as other kinds of images are placed there too. It also assumes that life restorations are more representative of the genera than the actual fossils are, which I think is unfortunate (modern animals can't really be compared, because what you see is what you get with them). So for the sake of consistency, I think a discussion is warranted to find some cut off point FunkMonk (talk) 16:15, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If there are a substantial number of restorations then they absolutely should not have been merged into the main category.--Kevmin § 16:37, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No strong opinion, but I personally find it easier to navigate if all is on one page. I do not like genus categories that are almost empty because everything is in those sub-categories and one has to click through all of them to see what images we have. But maybe one option could be to only have the life restorations as a sub-category, while the fossils are in the main category (because the fossils are arguably the main thing). Isn't there some Commons guideline stating how large a category should be before sub-categories can be created? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not some hard line in the sand but I think I agree with Jens that its easier if everything is within a single category. And separating "fossils" into "skulls", "skeletal mounts" etc gives a good amount of unnecessary duplication. Life restorations are a bit easier to separate, but without them in the main category, what else would be within Category:Corythosaurus? The phylogeny images are a bit worthless and aren't uploaded anymore since we use cladogram templates, and each taxon will generally only have a single size comparison. It's only in cases where theres an abundance of images (eg: Tyrannosaurus is the clearest example) where a life restoration category helps with organization IMO. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:10, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a rather parallel issue with commons categories I feel like I might just create a subsection here rather than a whole new section. WP:OVERCAT gives a good summary of where overlapping content, narrow focus, and intersections to follow, and it becomes fairly apparent to me that much of our categorization can be seem as somewhat duplicated or overdone. I'm using Ornithischia as an example because its where my greatest article focus lies. Fully expanded, Category:Ornithischians includes over 100 subcategories, despite the total count of ornithischian taxonomic pages being around 300. Of course, not all of these are unique categories, which is even more problematic. An article on a lambeosaurine, within Category:Lambeosaurines, can be traced upwards to the ornithischian category 8 times! We have a category specifically for ornithischian genera, but also have categories for genera within every single subgroup of ornithischia? Nevermind that every single continent has its own subcategory for ornithischian genera. Many of these categories are also duplicates of part or wholes of mainspace/other pages, like the List of dinosaur genera, or Category:Stub-Class dinosaurs articles.

I'm not entirely sure what suggestions to propose, but I think a starting points can be eliminating all the taxonomic subcategories of the non-taxonomic categories (eg. no more "Ornithopods of North America" or "Jurassic thyreophorans"). At that point there would still be some alternative paths to main parent categories, but far fewer especially if taxonomic categories are not nested within non-taxonomic categories (eg. remove "Lambeosaurines" from "Cretaceous ornithischians" but allow mainspace Lambeosaurinae to be within both). This strategy gets more complicated as we move to broader paleontology topics like the "Prehistoric fauna by locality" (which is mislabelled anyways since its by Formation) but provides a starting point. Thoughts? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:05, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So apparently the Huadanosaurus holotype (IVPP V14202) was the specimen originally attributed to Sinosauropteryx in 2010, which was known to preserve melanosomes. Now we know the 2017 research suggested a color pattern based on different specimens, but because the melanosome-bearing specimen no longer belongs to Sinosauropteryx, how should the sentence be reformatted, and does that mean there should be changes to the current reconstruction? (BTW Andrea Cau suggested in his blog that this melanosome-bearing Huadanosaurus holotype is simply a juvenile tyrannosauroid as well, but I don't think it's currently worth the inclusion in the Huadanosaurus article yet) Junsik1223 (talk) 16:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we can say that the Huadanosaurus specimen was the only one that supports the ringed tail (?), then this should be made clear in the article. But in general, outdated information should generally stay in the article if important for historical reasons, and this is the case here I think. Just add the new interpretations below that information. Same applies for the old size estimates of Magyarosaurus, btw, these should, I think, also stay in the article, and we don't even know if the new ones are really better. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:35, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From what I read, the Huadanosaurus specimen is simply the 'melanosome-bearing' one, and the countershading, banded tail 'color pattern' is the one inferred from the 2017 research, so basically the color pattern is fine, but that the color itself previously inferred for Sinosauropteryx might not be its actual one (especially if future research considers Huadanosaurus entirely separate from compsognathids/sinosauropterygids). And based on your suggestion, maybe I should reformat the article by stating that the researchers infer that Sinosauropteryx most likely had countershading, banded color pattern, though its actual color might still be uncertain. Junsik1223 (talk) 16:43, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, there are different ways to solve this. The easiest is discuss the relevant studies in chronological order (oldest to newest study). This way, new studies can be added in the future without having to re-write the entire text again. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just be careful with WP:Synth. You should only say "though its actual color might still be uncertain" if the source actually says this. If the sources do not, the most you can do is stating that the melanosome-bearing specimen is now assigned to a different genus. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, since Huadanosaurus is still considered a relative of Sinosauropteryx, we can't necessarily deem our restorations of the latter inaccurate, as it could be argued to fall within phylogenetic bracketing. FunkMonk (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes, blog articles done by serious researchers are usefull and can be used in the body of the article. Cau usually pushes in his blogs his own, entirely unreviewed and deeply minoritary pet theories about theropod ontogeny and subjects likewise, and it is usually best to avoid trusting him at face value for anything untested, unreviewed and unformally published. He's not a crank and publishes in highly respectable journals, but experience has shown that it is often best to leave this kind of discussion for when serious ontogenetic studies are published. Larrayal (talk) 02:25, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have proposed to merge/redirect Tatankaceratops to Triceratops, as no subsequent study since Longrich (2011) supported the validity of Tatankacertaops or included this genus in any phylogenetic analyses (addendum: except for one from supplementary material of Longrich (2014), which was used as a reason to support the synonymy). Talk:Triceratops#Merge_Proposal. If interested, please participate and thank you. Junsik1223 (talk) 22:57, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lehman et al 2016 (Agujaceratops mavericus) do not consider Tatankaceratops as a synonym of Triceratops but instead as a dubious or questionable taxon. As a genus it has only been mentioned 3 times since 2015 so saying that the Longrich paper established a consensus is difficult to justify. I oppose for now. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:44, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of that study and noted it already when I first proposed this (but as the study doesn't necessarily suggest it as a taxon distinct from Triceratops and simply lists as one of the examples of dubious/uncertain taxa, I didn't consider it a rebuttal in essence). Regardless, thanks for the participation. Junsik1223 (talk) 03:34, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While it’s classed as such in its taxobox, in the most recent RfD for Cephalobaenida it was mentioned that it’s unclear what we should be following in regards to Invavita's parent clade.

While PBDB classifies it as a cephalobaenid, Henga et al, 2020 places it as an indeterminate pentastomid (although the latter doesn’t specifically rule out a cephalobaenid affinity) IC1101-Capinatator (talk) 13:27, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A proposal has popped up to merge the article for the dubious allosaurid Epanterias into the Allosaurus page. Posting here to get some more input, please participate if interested. Thank you Talk:Allosaurus#Proposal_to_merge_Epanterias_into_Allosaurus The Morrison Man (talk) 11:22, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Starting to get into some more niche topics for articles and I'm coming across a slight issue with our article name convention for Russian geological strata that is a bit contradictory. Following the commentary on the topic by Benton (2000) in The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia, a Svita (transliteration from Cyrillic) cannot be considered equivalent to the same name of Formation. Gorizhont is an even more problematic term, being not a lithological term at all but more equivalent with a locality. But for some reason we have articles doing the exact same or even worse. I cannot find a single published reference to a "Dabrazhin Formation", every source on the topic uses the name Dabrazhinskaya Svita which is a redirect to the article. While Dabrazhin is presumably the location name following the convention of Benton, as no "Dabrazhin Formation" exists we surely cannot host an article at a title as such. To justify some uncontested move requests when they come up, I think it would be good for us to establish what the proper article names should be. Below is the list of "major tetrapod-bearing subdivisions of the Permo-Mesozoic of Russia and the Middle Asian republics" from Benton (2000), which should probably be used as the foundation for our article names, and I would suggest that we only use an alternative spelling or title when that has entered common application and not just single use. Names in italics have a page with a "Formation" suffix that I believe is correct, while those in bold have one that is incorrect in my opinion. Unlinked names lack articles. Redlinks have articles at an equivalent name, but I don't want to create redirects in case we chose to move names.

^Unique cases: I don't think that Beleuta Svita should redirect to Bostobe Formation (=Svita), they appear to be treated separately in literature. Gorizont and Svita are not equivalent despite the indication of the Bukobay Svita article. Yarenskian Gorizont is a convoluted article and needs double checking. Madygen appears to often be referred to as a laagerstatte rather than a Formation or Svita.

It's also worth noting that our use of translated versus transliterated article titles and spellings should be consistent with other scripts such as Mandarin though the use of a lithological term like Svita for a chronological unit is a uniquely Soviet thing. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 07:00, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have thought of this for a while, but does anyone here think that there should be an article which makes a comprehensive list of all the invalidly, informally named prehistoric taxa (for certain animal groups other than just for dinosaurs and pterosaurs)? We already have that with nomen nudum dinosaurs and pterosaurs in wikipedia, so I was wondering why not do that with other taxa in a more comprehensive list; this is just a suggestion, and any opinion about this is valid. Junsik1223 (talk) 20:23, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A draft of "informally named Paleozoic taxa" exists, created by @Ta-tea-two-te-to. I am strongly in favor of bring that to mainspace, since several editors (myself included) have nearly made an equivalent article already. It is already quite comprehensive, although it specifically applies to Paleozoic taxa rather than all non-dinosaur or pterosaur taxa. Gasmasque (talk) 01:19, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Maybe then we could similarly make an article for Mesozoic taxa (i.e. List of informally named Mesozoic taxa)? And probably for Cenozoic taxa as well. Junsik1223 (talk) 01:24, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think a list dedicated to all prehistoric taxa would violate WP:SALAT, but having a list of list articles with specific sublists (ideally divided by class, so having arthropods and fish in separate articles for example) would be fine. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly that would be ideal. Do you also think dividing it by specific time period (as suggested above) would be alright? Junsik1223 (talk) 01:31, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on how many informal taxa there are, if there are only a handful of entries for a particular combination of a group and time period, then it makes sense to just have a single entry dedicated to a group across all times periods, while if another taxonomic group has a lot of entries then it can be split by time period. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:36, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Has the List of informally named Mesozoic reptiles "(except dinosaurs and reptiles)" really a valid scope per WP:SALAT? We should always put new lists up for discussion here before creating them. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:57, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Based on the responses above, I thought that it was alright because 1) it is focused on the specific class of animals (with the exclusion of already established dinosaurs and pterosaurs) + 2) focused on a specific time period (since there are quite a lot of nomen nudum prehistoric reptiles to my knowledge, and doing that for all time periods would make the list too extensive). Additionally, @SlvrHwk seemingly agreed with creating the list. Anyway, if it's agreed to be not a valid scope, I'll apologize for that and will participate in deletion/moving discussion if necessary. Junsik1223 (talk) 18:35, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is just a question. I mean, WP:SALAT was pointed out above, and the Mesozoic reptiles list has the same problem (it is "paraphyletic" because it excludes dinosaurs and pterosaurs). Soon we would want own lists for sauropterygians, crurotarsi, etc., but then – how can we have a list of "Mesozoic reptiles" that does not include most of them? I am not sure, though, what could be a better solution that really covers all taxa. We have the same problem elsewhere, for example with the glossaries (we have the dinosaur glossary, but how to expand that up the tree?). Maybe it is worth discussing this fundamental issue at WP:SALAT? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Same for the paleo and dinosaur project and art review pages, though those are of course not in article space, but I think that underlines that dinosaurs are undoubtedly their own thing when it comes to popularity as a subject, which may warrant some kind of separation. FunkMonk (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They definitely warrant separation, as shown by all the books that are just about dinosaurs. But how to best cover all the rest without duplicating the dinosaur stuff? And I personally don't think that separating by time (like the list of Mesozoic reptiles) is a good idea because what matters is phylogeny. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that, if we follow WP policy, we have to organize those lists based on how the literature organizes the stuff. I can't think of any book or book chapter on "Mesozoic reptiles" to the exclusion of dinosaurs and pterosaurs – this is a "topic" that we made up ourselves, which is less than ideal (i.e., that list would be unlikely to pass WP:FLC, and we will get problems with it eventually). If we look at the literature, there is, for example, a book on "Early Archosaurs", and that term is actually quite common and seems to be reasonably well-defined. So a List of informally named early Archosaurs would be something that we can back-up with the literature, and that is key. (For this particular case, though, we might not have enough content to open such narrow lists on informally named taxa, so maybe it is practical to keep the Mesozoic reptiles list for now to collect the stuff, and correct it later). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:50, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly think that's a very great suggestion, and maybe I'll collect and write more informally named taxa, so that everyone can properly discuss how to split it. I mean the only reason I decided to "exclude" dinosaurs and pterosaurs is just because there were articles already for each of them, regardless of whether they warrant separate articles or not. So based on this, I'll keep in mind that the future additions to that article are all subject to split at some point (and I'll be much more careful with creating list articles next time). Junsik1223 (talk) 19:59, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Kind of unrelated to the list of informally named Mesozoic reptiles) Is it appropriate to redirect articles of informal taxa to the list of informally named taxa articles, if the former had already gone under AfD and had been agreed to deleted? When I was trying to expand the List of informally named pterosaurs article, I was planning to redirect "Parirau ataroa" to that list, but I found that it was already agreed to be deleted based on the AfD discussion started by Hemiauchenia back in 2020. I did ask about this in Hemiauchenia's talk page, and wanted to get some kind of answer/consensus here based on Hemiauchenia's suggestion. Junsik1223 (talk) 17:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the scope, given the size of the article, I think Mesozoic reptiles and pterosaurs could be combined. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 11:06, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I'll set up a merge proposal. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed a problem with our taxobox system regarding trace fossil ichnotaxa: We mix biological taxa with ichnotaxa, which is, by the rules of the ICZN, not allowed. Take Dromaeosauriformipes as example: The taxobox lists the ichnosubfamily and the ichnofamily, as well as a couple of biotaxa, such as Theropoda. This is incorrect – ichnotaxa must not be assigned to biotaxa. Ichnotaxonomy is a parataxonomy that has to be completely separate from biotaxonomy. "Theropoda" must not appear there (except for, maybe, in a field "trackmaker" or "producer").

To illustrate the problem further: There is actually a high-level ichnotaxon called "Theropodina". I think that "Theropodina" is supposed to be an ichnoorder, but the IUZN does not recognize ichnoorders and other levels above family level (I'm not sure if ichnosubfamilies are recognised). Another issue with "Theropodina" is that it is extremely obscure (nothing will even show up in a Google Scholar search), although the recent review (the book "Vertebrate Ichnology" by Lucas, Hunt, and Klein, 2025) mentions it two times. Not many ichnologists who name theropod ichnotaxa do actually know that a "Theropodina" even exists, and I myself learned about it only recently. And of course, we cannot simply assign all theropod ichnotaxa to "Theropodina" ourselves since that would be WP:OR.

But even ichnofamilies are used sparingly, and there are many ichnotaxa without any higher-level taxon to begin with. Ichnosystematics is underdeveloped, as it simply has little practical use. The recent review book mentioned above provides a systematic discussion of all existing vertebrate footprint ichnogenera and ichnospecies, but higher-level ichnotaxa are not discussed at all. Ichnofamilies are usually obscure and only used by a minority of researchers (Chirotheriidae is one exception).

Based on the above, I would suggest that we should not list any taxa above ichnogenus (ichnotaxa or biotaxa) in the systematics section of the trace fossil taxoboxes at all. Listing them there is undue weight towards concepts that are not widely used in any way and are not significant enough to merit their own articles, with few exceptions. (Also pinging Plantdrew, who does a lot of work on taxoboxes). Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, a fair number of ichnotaxa articles don't display any higher taxonomy. Of those that do display higher taxonomy (with biotaxa), it looks like a lot of them had the taxonomy templates modified by DrawingDinosaurs in June and July 2020, where higher level ichnotaxa sourced to Paleofile were replaced with biotaxa and the source was removed. Taxonomy templates for the higher level ichnotaxa existed, but were deleted in 2020 as unused, following DrawingDinosaurs edits. I think Paleofile is likely not a reliable source, although I don't really know much about it (it has numerous higher level ichnotaxa designated as "nova", but the Paleofile website would not be sufficient to establish new ichnotaxon names unless it is just a copy of something that was earlier published in a venue that does meet the requirements for establishing names).

Examples of ichnotaxonomy templates modified by DrawingDinosaurs: Pleisothornipos, Satapliasauropus, Parachirotheriidae, Pengxianpus. It wasn't just DrawingDinosaurs though; I made a bad edit myself by adding a biotaxon as parent to Ophiomorpha. Plantdrew (talk) 19:45, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. See Farlowichnus as an example of an ichnotaxon that simply has no parent taxon (none has ever been assigned to it). Above I suggested that we might be better off removing higher-level ichnotaxa (those above genus level) entirely. Can we use the taxobox without any parent taxon? Or should we better create a new infobox for trace fossil ichnotaxa instead? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:00, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{Ichnobox}} IS the infobox for trace fossil ichnotaxa; I don't think any other new infobox is needed. You can set "Ichnos" as |parent= in the taxonomy templates for ichnotaxa at the point where you don't want to display any higher-level ichnotaxa. Plantdrew (talk) 20:14, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, excellent – I didn't know we can set "Ichnos" as parent. I just tried that with Farlowichnus and it looks good. Thanks! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:20, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, all my edits to the ichnotaxa taxonomy templates were made specifically to remove the ichnotaxonomic scheme taken from Paleofile from Wikipedia, which from what I could gather was almost entirely novel and not in use in published literature. Referring them to higher biotaxa was a result of my own lack of knowledge on the rules and practices of parataxonomy and attempting to (mistakenly) preserve some sort of "order" than just leaving the ichnogenera hanging after removing the previous system. Apologies if this just ended up causing more trouble for anyone with better understanding of this field than I have, and I defer to your expertise for what's best on the matter. DrawingDinosaurs (talk | contribs) 23:29, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the Paleofile source was definitely a big improvement I think, so thank you for that. I didn't know that page and while the list is very impressive, it is a private webpage and, more importantly, the author seems to create tons of new high-level ichnotaxa by himself (for example, he creates the new taxon "Theropodipedia" instead of the actually existing taxon "Theropodina"). Of course, we cannot use that source.

Based on the above, I would now propose the following:

1. We do not include biotaxa in ichnoboxes.
2. We only include a parent ichnotaxon when it is widely used AND when the ichnogenus in question has been formally assigned to it. In all other cases, we set the parent taxon to "Ichnos" (=no parent taxon will be displayed).

This would be a prudent approach to avoid any issues with WP:Synth and WP:UNDUE that we otherwise might run into. What do you think? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:30, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is a reasonable reasonable approach. Implementing it would entail reviewing every taxonomy template for an ichnotaxon. There are 245 articles using {{Ichnobox}}, so there are somewhere around that many relevant taxonomy templates. There should be a way to search for the relevant templates, but I'm having trouble figuring out the search at the moment.

Jens, would this be something you're planning on tackling entirely on your own, or would you like some help? Plantdrew (talk) 03:18, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This search finds 316 taxonomy templates with |rank=ichno* where the wildcard is any ichno-rank.

Should the ichnobox have an extra section for the biota suspected of creating it? Its presence might also discourage people adding the biota to the classification.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:09, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both. Yes, I would definitely some help. It could be a longer-term goal. I see that Junsik1223 already fixed a couple of templates, which is great.

Regarding the "creator/producer" taxon: I am personally open to that suggestion; a section "Tracemaker" (to use the correct term) could be useful, especially since the boxes tend to be quite small if no parent taxa are present. The problem is though that this works well for tetrapod ichnotaxa such a tracks, but not so well for invertebrate traces. In invertebrate ichnology, the tracemaker taxon is simply not that important (often we have no clue at all, and in some cases we know that multiple unrelated taxa are responsible for a single ichnotaxon). For invertebrate traces, adding the ethological classification (see Trace fossil classification, e.g. "grazing trace", "digestion trace") would be more to the point. But then, those terms are not really used in tetrapod ichnology; e.g., we use the term "coprolite" or "track", which are descriptive terms, not digestichnia (digestion trace) or repichnia (locomotion trace), which reflect the interpreted behavior. Since the box is for any type of trace fossil, and since the approaches in vertebrate and invertebrate ichnotaxonomy are so different, it might be better to keep the box focused on taxonomy only. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This search finds 11 taxonomy templates for ichnotaxa which appear to be sourced to Paleofile. These would appear to be the first that need fixing.

There is a problem if the Paleobiology Database is regarded as a reliable source, since it definitely mixes ichnotaxa with organism taxa. Consider Amphisauropus which it says has the parent taxon Amphibia. But if you look at the paper it gives as the source, which is here, the authors clearly list Amphisauropus under "Amphibian ichnotaxa" not "Amphibia". The Paleobiology Database, which I have used to date as a reliable source, seems regularly to list ichnotaxa under a producer taxon. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So how about this version of Template:Taxonomy/Amphisauropus? Using an unranked informal group like "Amphibian ichnotaxa" helps to show the relationship of the ichnogenus without mixing ichnotaxa and organism taxa. If people don't like this, then the parent should be set directly to "Ichnos". Peter coxhead (talk) 15:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would instead prefer an optional section "Tracemaker", if we want to include the producer taxon. The problem I see with your approach is that "(unranked): Amphibian ichnotaxa" is not a taxon to start with, it is purely informal while including it in the "Trace fossil classification" section implies it is a formally named taxon (and if it's not a taxon, it cannot possibly be "unranked").

Another issue I see now: I don't think that the † symbol is appropriate. A trace fossil cannot possibly go "extinct", only biotaxa can. A tracefossil is a sedimentological structure. It can only disappear from the fossil record, but "extinct" is not the right term imo; it is only the trace of something that lived, it was not a living thing in itself and therefore cannot go extinct. So ideally, we might want to remove the "extinct=" parameter from the boxes, and finally remove that parameter from the ichnobox template altogether. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:30, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What about using tracemaker as the rank so you had "Tracemaker: Amphibian" instead of "Unranked: Amphibian ichnotaxa".

Removing the extinct makes sense.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:40, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Tracemaker" is not a rank, so a separate section seems cleaner, and makes clear that tracemaker and parent ichnotaxon are two independent concepts. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:43, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There was a previous discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Archive_60#Ichnotaxa_as_"extant". I'm fine with removing the extinction symbol, but do note that the ICZN doesn't cover names proposed after 1930 for the works of extant animals; i.e., by definition ichnotaxa are the works of extinct animals. Plantdrew (talk) 17:06, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, and it looks like there was already a consensus to remove the daggers. And yes, we only apply ichnotaxon names to fossil traces. Traces like Scoyenia are still produced today, but we only call them Scoyenia when older than Holocene. Regarding the suggestion to include additional information that some made above: Maybe adding two lines above the "Trace fossil classification" section, namely "Type: (track, burrow, boring, trail, MISS, etc.)" and "Tracemaker: " could be helpful, but not sure if that would be inconsistent with other taxoboxes. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And to be clear, ichnotaxa are not necessarily the works of extinct animals. They merely have to be defined based on trace fossils, not based on extant traces. The animals may still exist and make the same traces; it is just that the modern traces are excluded from the ichnotaxon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jens Lallensack: re the use of the terms "rank" and "taxon", we already have many "ranks" for use in taxoboxes that are not formal ranks under any of the nomenclature codes. See the content of Template:Anglicise rank; "ranks" include clade, informal group, morphotype, grade, plesion, stem group, etc. "Informal group" is a possible alternative to "unranked", for example. As for "taxon", given that an ichnotaxon is a group of morphologically distinctive ichnofossils, "amphibian ichnotaxa" seems fine in a taxobox to me, if there's no formal name at a sufficiently high level. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:47, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm … ok. I feel we open a huge can of worms here though. Thinking about it, I see three problems: 1) Track-trackmaker correlation usually comes with very high uncertainty. Just to stick with Amphisauropus as example, this ichnotaxon is actually now interpreted as a reptiliomorph track, not an amphibian track, see [14]. Other ichnotaxa are not better. A separate "tracemaker" section would allow us to put a bit more text to include the necessary ambiguity. But maybe this is something that is generally better left for the main text, not for an infobox. 2) Also, the combination "amphibian ichnotaxa" returns just four hits on Google Scholar, so this is not something that is commonly used in the literature either (I think it is only defined ad hoc). 3) And then we should not forget the invertebrate ichnotaxa, which are classified based on behaviour rather than the producer taxon, so this approach would be invalid there. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:57, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in this specific case it's clear that the tracemaker is disputed (seymouriamorphs may or may not be amphibians), so either way of indicating it in the taxobox is problematic, so I'll change the parent at Template:Taxonomy/Amphisauropus to Ichnos. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To add to the discussion and remove an inaccuracy above, trace-fossils are NOT limited to sedimentological impressions. There is a full subdiscipline of paleoentomology that has been developing over the past 30 years encompassing feeding and interaction traces left on plant fossils by arthropods, with full inchotaxon and indusifauna (larval case) nomenclature. So the scope of this discussion is a much broader impact then just verts.--Kevmin § 16:40, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]