Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs

Which Class?

What class does Dinosauria belong to? DarthVader 10:12, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Archosauria. Spawn Man

Sauropsida according to Benton's classification scheme,which is the the one we're using according to this page.John.Conway 03:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Reptilia, actually (see List of dinosaur classifications). Archosauria won't work unless we change all the birds and crocodilians to Class Archosauria, and Sauropsida is only needed if defining "Reptilia" in a paraphyletic sense (which would include basal Synapsids). since basal synapsids are listed under Class synapsida, Reptilia=Sauropsida, and Reptilia is the more well-known name and widely used on reptile pages already.Dinoguy2 14:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi:

Hi, I'm new to the group. Just thought I'd let you all know. I'll do my best with the dinosaurs, but someone may have to complete the taxoboxes for me, because although I can to the article, I'm not that good with species, phylum etc... Have a nice day...Spawn Man 00:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC) P.S. If you need anything done, just ask.

Have made 4 new dinosaur articles: Roar! Chomp! Snort! & Slash!. Worked on others & will continue to do so! Bye... Spawn Man 02:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus rex

. . . is a FAC! Banana04131 19:45, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Enlist help?

Hi, Just a friendly reminder that Dinosaur is a FAC. Please vote & leave comments here, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Plus, if you want to see it appear on the main page, don't hesitate to lend a hand to improve the article. Thanks, Spawn Man 22:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC).

Categorization

I suggest that no dinosaurs from now on should be placed in Category:Dinosaurs. Instead, they should be placed in two categories, one indicating the period in which they lived, and other indicating taxonomic classification. So for example, Tyrannosaurus rex would be in Category:Cretaceous dinosaurs and Category:Tyrannosaurids. GCarty 15:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, provided that enough is known about the dinosaur for the categorisation to be done accurately. Soo 19:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree as well, but I think getting down to family level might be too much. How about "suborder" categories like Theropod, etc.? Having a seperate category for each family might get out of control and be more trouble than it's worth to navigate, especially since many families only have one or two members.Dinoguy2 22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I think just use a little judgement. Tyrannosauridae is a large family so it's appropriate to have a category just for that. Other orders are less populous so need fewer categories. The exact line between the two is not that important provided it's reasonable. Soo 02:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. I have been using "Triassic/Jurassic/Cretaceous dinosaurs" and then a suborder/infraorder type category (Theropods/Prosauropods/Sauropods/Stegosaurs/Ankylosaurs/Ornithopods/Ceratopsians/Pachycephalosaurs). For primitive members we can use Ornithischia and Saurischia or even Dinosauria as categories, so that the category pages for the two big orders will just include the suborders as well as a few primitive members. I recommend using a third category for the bigger or most notable families/superfamilies (Dromaeosauridae/Tyrannosauridae/Hadrosauridae/Titanosauria/Carnosauria/Ceratosauria) but things like brachiosaurs or iguanodonts or coelophysids should just be covered by the sub/infraorders listed above. Ceratopsidae and Anklylosauridae are major families but are pretty well covered by Ceratopsia and Ankylosauria already. Ditto with stegosaurids and pachys.

Sheep81 11:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Article layout and other musings

During the process of creating stubs I've noted that my entries tend to be rather formulaic, which I think is a good thing for this encyclopedia, since one of the main critiques by the "establishment" is that we're lacking in article organization and basically need an editor to do that. I propose this quite journalistic layout:

Title: Generic name

• First paragraph

Who?: Species name (holotype)

What?: Classification (anglicized terms)

When?: Time

Where?: Locality

How?: Type of remains, dates of the finding and the description, and taphonomy

• Development

What does the name mean?

What characteristics differentiate this animal from others? How long, tall, heavy is it? What are the peculiarities: trophic relations, etc.?

What is the importance of this find in our understanding of the pre-historic world?

I know most of the participants of this project have been following more or less the same guidelines as I present here. However I would think it very fruitful if we could decide on a standard article structure so the review of old articles could pass for more than just adding information: turning them into 'lawful' encyclopedia articles.

On other stuff... I was perusing through the Cretaceous dinosaur list and found the damnedest thing:

• Masiakasaurus Masiakasaurus knopfleri
• Pyroraptor Pyroraptor olympius
• Rajasaurus Rajasaurus narmadensis

Oh, and the articles started with species names should have the specific epithet culled, even Tyrannosaurus rex. As I said, "standartize we must".

I agree. Individual species should not have their own articles. In fact, one of the projects (either tree of life or birds, which is a good model to follow) suggests that we only make entries for family-level taxa if all the sub-genera are stub quality or worse, and then bud off individual genera into their own articles as the info on the parent page is developed. So, if most ceratopsids, for example, don't have much in the way of an article yet, just make a page for Ceratopsidae with short blurbs on each genus and links to any that are already full blown articles, and work from there.Dinoguy2 20:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus (including rex)

IMHO it's about time to make Tyrannosaurus rex redirect to Tyrannosaurus, per general wikiproject naming guidelines, rather than vice versa as presently. Please give your pros and cons. -- Writtenonsand 12:35, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm torn on this. Yes, it should probably be moved to Tyrannosaurus, and yes, it discusses other 9possible) species of Tyrannosaurus other than T. rex. But Tyrannosaurus rex just has such a nice ring to it. Probably the best dinosaur name ever, and probably the only binomial name aside from Homo sapiens that everybody knows. That alone may warrent using the binomial as a title. Anybody else? Thoughts?Dinoguy2 18:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

If it's just for the ring of it that's no good reason, besides even if people use "tyrannosaurus rex" on the search engine they'll be accordingly directed to the pertinent genus. It's a win/win situation really as it doesn't trully matter.

So I'm for the moving of T. rex to Tyrannosaurus Dracontes 18:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll go ahead and move the page.Dinoguy2 20:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Genus authorship

Dunno if you guys have seen this page: Dinosaur Genera List - it gives the authors and dates of publication for every genus of dinosaur M Alan Kazlev 08:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

My Attempt:

Since Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs is becoming a bit dormant of late, I've decided to get it reactivated. I've started putting the following templates all over the show, & I'd appreciate if someone would try putting them on too. Remember, they only go on Dinosaur orientated artcle's TALK pages. Not the articles themselves.

So, finally, while I work on the project with a designer, in order to get more people, thus more pages, I would appreciate if you didn't move or shift (or stuff up for that matter) any of the work I'll be doing, like adding templates, protocols to the project page, etc etc. I'm hoping to get it up to the standard of The military history project. So, tell your friends to join up, or spam unknowing people & continue to do great articles. I no time, we'll have an awesome, professional project page! Spawn Man 03:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Page Organization

Just so it doesn't seem like this re-organization thing is a one Spawn Man show, I thought we could use this space to suggest and discuss changs to the projc page layout, guidelines, etc. The first thing that comes to my mind--The sections Dinosaur Taxa Names (Species, Higher oder taxa) and Article titles seem to contain variously redundant, contradictory, and confusing information. In my opinion we need to replace these sections with some clear guidelines on usage. What constitutes a common name? When should common names be used? What should be used in pages for high-order taxa, common names (Ankylosaurids) or scientific names (Ankylosauridae)? We've already decided that thel owest order taxa for an individual enry should be genera and the pages should be named acordingly (Tyannosaurus instead of Tyrannosaurus rex), but this needs to be spelled out clearly along with the conditions to grant an exception (preoccupation, as in Mei vs Mei long, but what else, if anything?). We should also address conflicts with Wikiprojet Tree of Life, of which Wikiproject Dinosaurs is a member. That page states that common names be used in article titles, and scientific names if no common name exists. Thus the title of the article on Tyrannosaurus should really be Tyrannosaurs, assuming we approve a guideline which states "tyrannosaur" refers to the genus tyrannosaurus and not a hyothetical group Tyrannosauria as a whole (right now our page states that ankylosaur could refer to either Ankylosaurus or Ankylosauria, we need to decide which way we're all going to use that form on Wikipedia).

I think we also need to ennumerate some other rules of thumb we'e all been using and discussing on other talk pages, such as the use of Class Sauropsida (and what it links to: Reptile or Sauropsid? If the latter, shouldn't there be similarly seperate pages for the scientific term Aves and the vulgar term Bird?), the definition of Aves, etc. We don't want one article referring to Microraptor as an avan, and another referring to Hesperornis as a non-avian dinosaur, beause of different definitions. The use of "bird" is more problematic. What's a bird? An animal with pennaceous feathers? A flying/secondarily flightless feathered animal? A member of Aves? A member of Avifilopluma? Does it matter? Maybe we don't need a rule for this one at all. Just some food for thought anyway.Dinoguy2 20:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually it is a one man Spawn Man show. No one else has decided to re activate this decaying project? But if you want to help, then that's fine with me, as I'd like other people involved too. All I ask is that no one touches the work me & the designer are doing until we are finished, unless specifically contradicted by myself, such as placing the talk page banners on all things dinosaur. I'll be posting on this page & possibly other talk pages what everyone thinks about certain things that have been improved. So, to clarify with everyone about the order of things, I've made the following step by step list of the order of improvements:

1) Ideas by myself, designer or people who leave a message here or on my talk page, are put into action if found suitable.

2) I or the designer will play around with the new improvement to make it more usable.

3) I will ask everyone in the project for an opinion on the new improvement.

4) Finish improving the improvement & repeat list again from step 1).

So, that's about it. Any questions, please post it on here or my talk page... Spawn Man 23:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

New Improvement

As per step three (on the dinosaur project talk page), I promised to ask a general consensus about any new improvements made. So, I'd like everyone to give comments on the new talk page banner:

What does everyone think of it? It's meant to be placed on the talk page of dinosaur related articles, so everytime you edit an article, placing this there would make our job easier. So a few questions I'd like everyone to answer:

1)Does everyone like the picture? 2)Is the wording adequate? 3)Any other queries/problems?

I'll let you know when a new improvement arises... Spawn Man 00:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I like it. I think, as the main image on Dinosaur, the picture is ok. The only small issue in the wording is the inclusion of "other prehistoric life". Dinosauria alone is a massive, massive project, do we really need to bring pseudosuchia, synapsida, etc. into this? ;) Dinoguy2 00:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is no other project for that kinda stuff, but I totally agree. It was only there to make the banner seem more sophisticated any way.... Spawn Man 00:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

New Improvement 2

As per step three (on the dinosaur project talk page), I promised to ask a general consensus about any new improvements made. So, I'd like everyone to give comments on the new talk page banner:

What does everyone think of it? It's meant to be placed on the user talk page or user page of members of the Dinosaur wikiproject, so placing this there would make our job easier. So a few questions I'd like everyone to answer:

1)Does everyone like the picture? 2)Is the wording adequate? 3)Any other queries/problems?

I'll let you know when a new improvement arises... Spawn Man 00:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC).

Looks good to me, and it's now on my talk page, although I wouldn't mind a better picture that clearly shows a dinosaur and not a dinosaurish orange blob. Do we have one of a Styracosaurus head? That would be sweet. Sheep81 10:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to send out a few pictures to your talks to see if you like any photos better.... Spawn Man 18:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Subprojects

I know there are not many active participants and we still have a lot of work to do just to clean up the dinosaur taxa entries, but to cut down on red links, eventually we might want to take on other related things like:

• Dinosaur paleontologists
• Dinosaur-bearing formations
• Dinosaur-oriented museums?

I think the taxa entries should clearly be the #1 priority though. Sheep81 11:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, especially for the paleontologists, since there are a lot of unliked or redlinked authority names in the taxoboxes.Dinoguy2 16:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That's what dinosaur related means, anything related to dinosaurs. We actually have quite a lot of freedom on the subject, so we can actually do all the things mentioned aboved. If we had time, we could change the name of the project to "Prehistoric Life" & have an offshoot called "Dinosaur project". This might draw more attention to the projetc as it covers a wider range. Lets face it, altough most people love dinosaurs, most have no real idea about them & usually get their information solely from Jurassic Park. Real dinosaur knowledgables are hard to come by. Spawn Man 18:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

New photos proposed for templates?

Well, above are a few photos that could replace the exsisting template photo. Please feel free to suggest more photos on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs talk page. Spawn Man 19:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the rex skull. It is the most familiar dinosaur by far, and usually the one people think of first. Plus, I think it will show up better on the little tiny box since it takes up a larger portion of the picture. The current picture is great at normal size but when shrunk it is a bit hard to tell what it is. At least to me. Sheep81 16:54, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed.... Spawn Man 22:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

New improvement 3

As per step three, I'm informing you that... A new userbox has been created!! Please give comments and feedback (not including the picture, which may be due to change).

This user participates in
WikiProject Dinosaurs.

I will inform on arrival of more improvements. Spawn Man 19:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

All your boxes have looked just fine to me so far.