Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology

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 Many of our project pages, in particular the main page, are an outdated, inconsistent, and highly cluttered mess, and probably neither helpful nor attractive for newbies.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 [https://openverse.org/] 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)

: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)

::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)

:::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)

::::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)

:::::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)

::::::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)

: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)

::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)

:::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)

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

• 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)
• :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)

:::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)

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

::{{ping|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)

:::I am no expert at making templates, so much of the original code I used was taken from PresN's {{tl|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 {{tl|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)

::::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)

:::::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)

: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)

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

::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)

:::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)

::::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)

:::::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)

:::::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)

::::::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)

:::::::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)

::::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)

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)

: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)

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

::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)

:::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)

::::{{ping|IJReid}} What do you mean? The page is transcluded where? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::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)

::::::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)

:::::::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)

• 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)
• :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)
• ::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)

: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)

: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)

::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)

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

{{ping|Abyssal}}, courtesy ping as they created the example list in proposal two. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:57, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

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)

: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)

::"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)

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)

I've just had a brief discussion with {{u|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)

: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)

::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)

::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. {{u|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)

:::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)

::::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)

:::::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)

: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)

::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: {{tq|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)

After months of tinkering, I have finally finished making and revising the {{tl|Paleospecies table}} and {{tl|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 {{tl|Species table}} (example) and {{tl|Animal genera table}} (example). Happy editing! SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

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)

: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)

::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)

:::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)

::::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)

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)

: I don't have access either but the abstract [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.030 Hughes et al (2024)] says {{tq|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.}} ... {{tq|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 ([https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1065129 Tiny worm makes for big evolutionary discovery]) and a commentary ([https://www.sci.news/paleontology/uncus-dzaugisi-13441.html Ediacaran Nematode-Like Worm Fossils Unearthed in Australia]).  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

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

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

Is there anyone with the ability to merge page histories that can clean up the cut-paste move reversion that {{u|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)

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

::: {{u|Bubblesorg}} we need someone that has the tools to perform page history merges.--Kevmin § 15:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

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

I recently saw {{u|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[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Corythosaurus][https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lambeosaurus][https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypacrosaurus], 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)

: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)

: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)

: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)

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.

Ornithischians

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)

:I've started some work on my sandbox to create a more consolidated and less redundant categorization scheme. Unfortunately there is some significant inconsistency in category names that means I'll have to take a bunch to WP:CFDS to be renamed as editors cannot themselves. The biggest issue I see is with the inconsistent "formal name" versus "vernacular" for taxonomic categories (eg. Alvarezsaurs) where they should align with the main article title (eg. Alvarezsauroidea). The only exception to this match would be Dinosaurs/Dinosauria, neither of which will correspond exactly with the article title Dinosaur, but categories should be plural so one or the other will have to suffice. I think taxonomic categories also shouldn't follow the amount of pages we have, even the reduced scheme currently, since their purpose is for moving between related content and not providing descriptions or histories that the articles have. That's why for example I think Ornithischia should be fine with the "big five subgroups" (plus Heterodontosauridae and Thescelosauridae) rather than dividing into Thyreophora and Neornithischia etc. Thoughts? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:31, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• I agree in general that we have a problem with over-categorization, but it'll be a huge task to do anything about. FunkMonk (talk) 12:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
• :As part of this and related work on the topic, there is a nomination to delete multiple geographic-related categories. I've thrown in my opinion about it but others should also express their thoughts if they have them Here. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
• I oppose this "sledgehammer approach" to categories including to well established categories like :Category:Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa et al. You said this at the above afd:

::{{tq|If a standard is going to be created here where animals cannot be categorized by their modern location, then such a standard should be applied evenly without bias. This extends beyond just "Dinosaurs of" categories. It should include all extinct animals at a minimum, and on a pragmatic level all life that does not confine itself to human borders. And if there is not going to be a standard created here to lead to other mass deletions by the same justification, then these categories should remain.}}

:Replace modern location with temporal range as you said above and have started to remove categories like LJ dinosaurs of Africa, Jurassic thyreophorans etc., then that would extend to your own recent creations such as :Category:Carnian dinosaurs and would also extend to all the temporal animal cats like :Category:Late Cretaceous mammals, :Category:Cretaceous insects etc. Lavalizard101 (talk) 11:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::Also pinging category creators of categories that have so far been affected or will be affected that are still active (other than me ofc, I created Ornithischians of Africa et al. and Jurassic thyreophorans et al.) {{ping|Trilletrollet|Abyssal}} Lavalizard101 (talk) 12:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::Once we get into the "[Age] dinosaurs of [location]" we are getting into WP:OVERCAT territory where we are producing too many categories of intersections between concepts and too much topic overlap. Categorizing by place and time separately avoids that, and maintains relatively useful categories that are easy to understand and also practical. Close to if not all the "Middle Jurassic dinosaurs of Argentina" are from the Canadon Asfalto Formation, which has its own category (or will when I get around to creating it) which created complete duplication that is recommended against. The conversations at the discussion page also suggest the deletion of "by continent" categories as well, because they are still "modern" locations (North America wasn't separated until the latest Cretaceous if that).

::Ornithischians of Africa and Jurassic thyreophorans have a separate issue with their naming, because we have to follow the article title and avoid unpublished or inconsistent vernaculars, so they should be Ornithischia of Africa or Jurassic Thyreophora. But thats something to figure out if we move them after we figure out if they are practical to keep. I don't think such categories are not useful by default, but within context its worthwhile to realize that a Jurassic Thyreophora category would include around 30 articles that are already only split between Stegosauria (~20), Ankylosauria (~5), and Thyreophora (~5) and essentially duplicates those already-closely-linked categories. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:13, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::that cfd discussion, is leaning towards keep at the moment. Also the cateogry in existence is Middle Jurassic dinosaurs of South America not Argentina, the [temporal age] dinosaurs of [location] is continent based not country (except for Australia). And the Canadon Afalto Formation category includes non dinosaurs as well (or should) so no there is no complete overlap. as for the vernaculars they are not incosistent or unpublished, most authors treat "ornithischians" and "thyreophorans" as terms for members of the respective groups when discussing them, also if we are taking about consistency then the entire category tree of synapsids of x would like a word, especially the subcats: :Category:Synapsid families :Category:Synapsid genera :Category:Prehistoric synapsids. Lavalizard101 (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::::You have to understand that all of the existing category tree for prehistoric animals is largely problematic and cannot be used as evidence for convention. That is why some 100 categories have recently been renamed, and more should be. "Dinosaurs of" is acceptable because the article title is Dinosaur, not Dinosauria, otherwise the proper form would be "Dinosauria of". It is just that we are now getting to the stage where we can clean up the old mess.

::::It is for the same cause that there is no real reason for the continent-level choice, nor the stage-level choice, of the [temporal age] dinosaurs of [location] categories. That was just an arbitrary decision made 10 years ago that is now being referenced by others of the same form in a circular proof. I think we have to ask "why" the category is useful, and determine it from its utility alone. Because the foundation of what categories are acceptable is not based upon the guidelines or conventions of categorization. In my opinion, a category that compiles all Middle Jurassic dinosaurs of South America is not a very useful article. Not all the taxa would have lived at the same time, or in the same place, or been from the same group. For me it feels very arbitrary in decision, and created a needless web of categories. Currently Middle Jurassic dinosaurs of South America 'only' includes taxa from Canadon Asfalto (plus Isaberrysaura) so instead I will use :Category:Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America as an example:

::::This is a category that is uniting the Canadian, Campanian, Vegaviid bird Maaqwi with the American, Cenomanian, Tenontosaurid ornithischian Iani. These two articles have nothing else in common apart from their shared overlap of being two of 211 dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of North America. They did not live in the same country, at the same time, in the same environment, or belong to the same group. Grouping Iani with other early ornithopods, Cenomanian taxa, and American taxa, gives it that overlap of useful comparative information that you could theoretically get by looking through Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America, so its really worth asking if this is convenient.

::::Starting from scratch (which is essentially what we have to do; every article in the project needs to be recategorized for consistency), would we create a category for Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America, or would we be happier with more specific categories for the Cenomanian, Ornithopoda, and the United States that provide more comparable articles and topics in one place? I think it is cleaner and more justifiable to separate out the topics of categorization (taxonomy, location, temporality). And if we keep the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of the United States, do we get rid of the Campanian dinosaurs and Dinosaurs of the United States, because at that point they are overlapping. We want to avoid narrow intersections of categories (like intersecting taxonomy, location, and temporality) as well as overlapping, so I believe that the intersection categories should be abandoned in favour of the more segmented structure, but that is something to discuss. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:59, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Again its the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America not the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of the United States. No one has suggested we break the temporal dinosaur continental cats down to countries. and again there is some overlap, but guess what your taxonomy, location, temporal split also has overlap e.g. a large majority of Ceratopsidae are Campanian and are from the United States or Canada, heck all but one member of Ceratopsidae are from Western North America. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Also I wouldn't call 211 pages in LC of NA {{tq|Narrow intersection}}. Neither would I call Ornithopods of North America which currently has 13 in the category but has upward of 30 {{tq|Narrow intersection}} same with LC ornithopods with upward of 50. Now Ornithischians of Africa I'd say yeah probably no need to split into thyreophorans of Africa, ornithopods of Africa etc. due to not as many fossils. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:47, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::What about Jurassic thyreophorans? It may appear as a "broad" intersection, but it almost has complete overlap with Stegosaurs. And :Category:Pachycephalosauria wasn't even classified under Marginocephalia, but under "Cretaceous marginocephalians", which is both true and bad practice. :Category:Jurassic marginocephalians only includes members of :Category:Chaoyangsauridae. When we begin intersecting the temporal and taxonomic categorization, we are creating situations with close to complete overlap. All hadrosaurids are Cretaceous ornithopods, because Hadrosauridae evolved in the Late Cretaceous. Adding in geographic locations (continent versus country is a matter of WP:DIFFUSE) just creates more such cases of near or total redundancy. All ceratopsids are Late Cretaceous North American (except one), all chaoyangsaurids are Jurassic (possibly Early Cretaceous) Asian, all nodosaurids are either European or North American.

:::::::Do you believe that one category for all Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America is more useful, with less WP:OVERLAPCAT, fewer risks of WP:OCNARROW, and an acceptable level of WP:DIFFUSE, compared to separate categorization for Cenomanian, Turonian, Coniacian, Santonian, Campanian, and Maastrichtian dinosaurs, separately distributed across either Canada, the United States, or Mexico? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:16, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Why restrict to just dinosaurs? After all per this line of logic :Category:Late Jurassic mammals of Europe is {{tq|Narrow intersection}} as is :Category:Cretaceous lizards, heck the entire category tree of [temporal age] [animal group] and [temporal age] [animal group] of [continent] would fit that logic, which would decimate hundreds of categories for a personal opinion on overcategorisation. Also your argument about the cats being arbitrary and invoking them being a circular argument as to the why for usefulness, the fact that for the past 10 years and no one has objected to them (bar you, although its difficult to tell whether you object to the entire tree or just the dinosaur subcats as that is the focus of the discussion) and most category adders have used them suggest otherwise, afterall if others objected to them why would they use them or at the very least other editors would have brought it up. ANd yes the dinosaur subtype hasn't been used as much, but thats probably down to me only creating them last year and forgetting to actually populate them fully, so most category adders and users may not be aware that they exist, although some other users are using them ({{ping|SlvrHwk}} and {{ping|Junsik1223}}) so some other people agree that they are useful. And per your logic your method would also leave some of what you call {{tq|Narrow intersection}}, after all most ceratopsids are Campanian and are north american, so your own system has overlap as well. Also your (Campanian) dinosaurs cats are themselves subcats of (Campanian) genera and would be the only subcats of said tree, when other subcats would also be useable, not to mention potentially more unstable than just Late Jurassic dinosaurs of X as boundaries and formations get re-dated and refined. There is also the question of how would you determine what Age to use if the fm has only been given a rough multi age date within the same period. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::I definitely don't think reducing categories should be just limited to dinosaurs, it has just been a starting point to assess the feasibility of change. Treating the last 10 years of categories as a staple for stability also doesn't work, because they have never been consistently applied. Every category had some small number of total articles included, enough to pose as useful, but never included all the articles within their scope because it takes editing several tens of thousands of articles to do so. Every time I have created a new article I have just copied the categories used in a similar article without thought about why, which is not a good precedent to have.

:::::::::The category system should be accessible to everyone whether they have experience with it or not. So what are the things that are notable about a (as an example) taxon? What it is, where its from, how old it is, when/who named it. Those are as independent in scope as you can get, which is why mixing and matching feels problematic. Taxonomy is easy, because you can give put Lambeosaurus in Lambeosaurinae without dispute. Location, while disputed whether country or continent is a better scope, is also easy; Lambeosaurus is from Alberta, Canada, North America (or, historically, Laramidia). How old it is is also easy, the question is really just whether including everything from the Campanian in one single :Category:Campanian makes that category too large and requiring content forks. The objective part is that Lambeosaurus is Campanian, the subjective part is how to split the 1000 articles that would be Campanian. Campanian dinosaurs is one possible way to split content, and whether other options are better is up for discussion. When and who named it are both uncontroversial.

:::::::::But when we combine those five-ish independent lines of categorization we run into problems that those who don't have experience will not know how to handle. Would Lambeosaurus go in *both* Lambeosaurinae of North America *and* Lambeosaurinae? What about the lambeosaurines of Africa? Do they get their own category, or do they go in Lambeosaurinae? And what do we place Lambeosaurinae of North America in? If we place it within Lambeosaurinae then Lambeosaurus cannot also be within category Lambeosaurinae because pages are not supposed to be within both the child (Lambeosaurinae of North America) and parent (Lambeosaurinae) categories at the same time. We don't have a need to WP:DIFFUSE any of the taxonomic categories, because none contain more than ~100 pages. So what purpose does the intersection categories serve? That's the part that really underlies the disagreement here, I do not see the [Age] [Taxon] of [Place] categories as serving a purpose, and I have yet to see their purpose presented in a way that is beneficial more than it causes inconsistency and confusion. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:19, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Looking specifically at your recent [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mandschurosaurus&diff=prev&oldid=1286372072 edit] to Mandschurosaurus, we can very clearly see how this problem of WP:OVERCAT manifests. :Category:Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia, :Category:Ornithopods of Asia, and :Category:Late Cretaceous ornithopods are not independent categories, so why are all three used? Two of these categories highlight Mandschurosaurus as Late Cretaceous (ignoring that you also added :Category:Maastrichtian dinosaurs), two of these categories highlight Mandschurosaurus as an ornithopod (ignoring that it is already within :Category:Hadrosauroidea which only includes ornithopods), and two of these categories highlight Mandschurosaurus as being from Asia. Why? And that's not even getting into that all the "_ ornithopods" categories are misnamed according to WP:C2D and WP:C2C and should be moved to "_ Ornithopoda". This overcategorization is creating a web of confusion that has been ongoing for the last decade but hasn't been dealt with because its a very large task and requires so much discussion as we are having here. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::No one is suggesting [subfamilies] of x, so your example is overblown hyperbole, the [temporal] [taxa] and [taxa] of cat article tree I'm suggesting/creating is ornithischians with ornithopod, thyreophorans and marginocephalian (with pachycephalosaur and ceratopsian subcats as needed) subcats when needed, and saurischians (eventually) with sauropodomorph (with a sauropod subcat) and theropod subcats. As to inconsistency, the cats are only inconsistent bc of how many articles haven't been categorised as well as they could be and if we go down your route talking about inconsistency then most paleo cats are technically inconsistent including your own Campanian dinosaurs et al., after all campanian genera et al. are missing loads, and can cause confusion especially when some articles talk about local faunal stages (e.g. some of the North American dinosaur articles use Lancian, Judithian et al. North American Faunal Stages). Also how old some fossils are is not easy so how would we categorise them temporally? and No-one is combining five independent lines of categorization, [Age] [Taxon] of [Place] is a valid research topic that review articles use. So if actual researchers use these lines of categorisation for review purposes then they aren't completely independent. Heck the combination of temporal and geographic range of taxonomic groups is an entire field (paleobiogeography). As for two cats overlapping :Category:Ornithischian genera overlaps with nearly all the other subcats of Category:Ornithischia (minus the articles on higher rank taxa which account for less than 25%) and there is a lot of overlap between :Category:Ceratopsidae and Category:Cenomanian dinosaurs as most ceratopsids are Campanian, so even your own method would lead to overlap. Lavalizard101 (talk) 22:18, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::And the categories are accessible to anyone and are not confusing, after all this is the first time anyone has claimed the cats are confusing, when they are not. Lavalizard101 (talk) 23:26, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::I've paused on making any edits to article categorization while this discussion is still ongoing, otherwise I would have completed a recategorization of all dinosaur articles weeks ago. If we are going to follow a method of [temporal] [taxon] [place] categories, how do we justify and set a standard for the temporal range, taxon inclusivity, and place? Currently the decision is to use epochs, an arbitrary "major" clade, and continents. But why? Moving forwards we should be able to track and justify the decision for each so that we can establish a guideline and prevent conflicting categorizations, so historic "precedent" doesn't matter. And what do we do for the things that don't fit within this scheme, such as silesaurids that may or may not be ornithischians, or chaoyangsaurids that may be either Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous? Does it make sense to put Chaoyangsaurus within both "Late Jurassic Ceratopsia of Asia" and "Early Cretaceous Ceratopsia of Asia" just because its formation is poorly dated? Having one taxon within both "Tithonian dinosaurs" and "Barremian dinosaurs" creates a lot less duplication of content, and its easier to establish guidelines for it because it only relies upon two things, the category diffused by Age, and the category diffused by being a dinosaur.

::::::::::::As an aside, because its relevant here, I don't support the use of :Category:Ornithischian genera because its completely redundant to :Category:Dinosaur genera and the taxonomic categories of Ornithischia, which are both much more justifiable to use given that the dinosaur genera category is a category with the main page List of dinosaur genera following WP:C2D. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:02, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::Again no-one is suggesting [temporal] [taxa] of [place] cats for your exaggerated example, :Category:Ceratopsians of Asia and :Category:Early Cretaceous ceratopsians are two seperate cats that aren't being intersected with the [temp] [taxa] of [place] system. And the major clade groups of the pre-existing cat scheme are not arbitrary, if we were to follow that logic just [taxa] cats could also be considered arbitrary as to which taxa is the main cat holder e.g. Iguanodontia, it doesn't have its own article so choosing it as the category holder over say Ankyllopolexia that does have its own article or putting all Iguanodontia articles in the Ornithopoda category with Rhadbodontomorpha and Hadrosauroidea still being subcats seems just as arbitrary if not moreso, as would the temporal taxa subcats you have suggested after all what other major clades would you consider using to diffuse :Category:Campanian genera as well as dinosaurs afterall dinosaurs is only a major clade bc of public interest compared to say therapsida in terms of diffusing temporal/place cats? Please tell me how your decisions could be considered less arbitrary than the current system. Lavalizard101 (talk) 11:42, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::Category:Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia is a [temporal] [taxon] [place] category. As is :Category:Late Jurassic mammals of Europe and many other examples. The taxonomic group is large but is still a taxonomic group. The pre-existing scheme is absolutely arbitrary. Abyssal [https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/Abyssal/all created] 4658 categories and even mainspace articles and portals that mirror the categories (eg. List of the Mesozoic life of Mississippi). 524 categories have since been deleted, but most haven't simply because no one takes the effort to sort through some 20,000 pages. I was one of the main driving forces of redirecting articles such as Iguanodontia that you are using as evidence for what category taxa are useful, which is why I am pushing for the category system to be updated to match.

::::::::::::::My ideal categorization would perfectly mirror the mainspace pages that exist, with room for diffusion, which makes less arbitrary by following WP:C2D policy. Mainspace pages exist for Lambeosaurinae, and Campanian, and Dinosaur Park Formation, and William A. Parks, 1923 in paleontology, List of dinosaur genera, List of North American dinosaurs. The *only* subjective choices are to diffuse :Category:Campanian and :Category:Dinosaurs of North America into what I view as the most useful subcategories.

::::::::::::::Other category systems like :Category:Birds and :Category:Mammals based on their WikiProjects separate Birds by location or Mammals by location into countries, with very limited exceptions where Bats, Rodents, or domesticated animals also get their own subcategories. There are around 2700 rodent species, more than the entire Dinosauria, and yet :Category:Rodents by country is not separated into beavers, or mice, or squirrels. Perhaps "Campanian North America" is better than "Campanian dinosaurs" as a way to diffuse "Campanian", but that scope is already covered by "Dinosaur Park Formation". "Maastrichtian genera" cannot include anything other than genera articles, so we wouldn't be able to place Edmontosaurus annectens within the same category as Tyrannosaurus despite them living together. "Maastrichtian life" does work as a possibility, but for the same reason as "Maastrichtian" it would require diffusion into something. We don't have articles for Early Cretaceous Ceratopsia or Ceratopsia of Asia, but we do have Yixian Formation which is both Early Cretaceous, and Asian, and also now has a category :Category:Yixian Formation to cover that scope. If you really want to find all ceratopsians that lived across the world during the Early Cretaceous, you can use the [https://paleobiodb.org/#/ Paleobiology Database], because that's what its meant for, but Wikipedia is not a directory. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::Have you considered the idea that the reason most haven't been deleted is not bc "too much effort" but bc others find them useful. And not every cat requires a defining article, so the fact that Early Cretaceous Ceratopsia is not an article is not reason against an article after all per that logic (list of) Campanian dinosaurs is not an article and neither is (list of) campanian life/campanian genera so following that logic your own temporal subcats wouldn't be needed, I'm sorry but this comes across as reasoning after the fact, as the same reasons you are suggesting for the current system being flawed apply to your own categories as well. Afterall your decision as to how to diffuse Campanian appears to be arbitrary as well, after all why dinosaurs and not reptiles (either as just [temporal] reptiles or other [temporal] [taxa] for other reptile group taxa) ? etc. Lavalizard101 (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::I agree with IJReid that the current categorization is a mess and that this needs to be simplified. Most of these categories were created by individuals without consensus, and it is highly unlikely that this organically-grown system is optimal. I do think, however, that this discussion here is misplaced. We might need a proper new section (rather than a sub-section) that people easily see, and clearly and concisely state what we want to change to what, and then have a vote. Probably this should involve WP:TOL too. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

{{outdent}}

:Given the extensive discussion above about the current system of categorization within this WikiProject, and how it is influenced by and influences the broader categorization scheme of other WikiProjects, I think it is worth more completely establishing a proposal for how to categorize articles, guidelines for what categories to have, and what to do with existing categorization schemes. I propose the following:

1. Categories are to be based off of the established mainspace articles and their names following WP:C2D and WP:C2C and WP:CROSSCAT
2. *Mainspace articles can include topics such as taxonomic clades, formations, geologic time units, scientists, and lists etc.
3. *This also means all categories should follow the exact name as the mainspace article (ie. "Ornithischia" rather than "ornithischians")
4. Where categories exceed a reasonable article count they may be split following WP:DIFFUSE into the main category and subcategories
5. *This "reasonable article count" lies between 200 and 400 articles, as categories under default preferences display up to 200 pages on a single list
6. *Diffusion should follow boundaries between WikiProjects or established mainspace articles to maximize scope and consistency across and within projects
7. **ie. :Category:Campanian diffused into :Category:Campanian life and/or :Category:Campanian dinosaurs as the boundary between WP:GEO and WP:PALEO and WP:DINO
8. Container categories should be limited to categorization by the topics seen in for example WP:BIRD and WP:MAMMAL: by location, by classification, by year of description, and by geologic time.
9. *As geographic locations change over time, location should reference modern geography as in WP:BIRD and WP:MAMMAL with both continent and country categories acceptable
10. *"[Taxon] by classification" categories are not needed if nested taxonomies are used as exemplified by :Category:Saurischia
11. Creation of categories that do not follow the above, or are questionable, should be discussed prior, so that categorization can stay consistent and understood
12. Articles should be categorized within the least inclusive category that exists for each topic it can be categorized according to, subject to discretion
13. *ie. A taxon of uncertain age or multiple age ranges may be categorized according to epoch, period, or era depending which is considered more "useful" by the editor
14. Categories themselves should be categorized according to increasing inclusivity while following the same guideline for creation
15. *ie. :Category:Chaoyangsauridae, a taxonomic clade category, is a child category of :Category:Ceratopsia, a taxonomic clade category, but not :Category:Dinosaurs of China, a location category, despite the mainspace article Chaoyangsauridae being categorizable within both
16. *Exceptions exist for categories that serve as both containers for their respective WikiProjects as well as a mainspace article (eg. :Category:Birds) which should be parent to all categories that reflect content under the scope of their WikiProject, including container categories

• Additional notes, category types that would be deleted/redirected or kept and why:
• Categories in the form of :Category:Taxa named by Richard Owen, kept. The standard amongst WP:BIOGRAPHY is to categorize "works" by or about an individual (see :Category:Works by Albert Einstein). There is overlap with the biology-focused WP:TOL and WP:PALEO in these categories, but the precedent to follow is that of articles about people, rather than science.
• Categories in the form of :Category:Paleontology lists, deleted. This is already covered by the rating system for WikiProjects and :Category:List-Class Palaeontology articles
• Categories in the form of :Category:Carnian first appearances, deleted. While it is a possible way to diffuse :Category:Carnian, a "first appearance" is problematic to determine in any definitive way and the categorization by time is more objective if the focus is on the epoch rather than the evolution.
• Categories in the form of :Category:Extant Late Triassic first appearances, deleted. Same as above with the additional caveat that this would only be applicable as a diffusion of the above and thus is twice as dependent on the reasoning.
• Categories in the form of :Category:Early Cretaceous ceratopsians, deleted. As discussed below and per guidelines above, not tied to a mainspace article, neither :Category:Early Cretaceous nor :Category:Ceratopsia needs to or should be diffused in this way, and it is not a container category.
• Categories in the form of :Category:Campanian life, uncertain. I don't know whether categories about "life" should reflect taxonomic rank or not. It feels odd to emphasise the epoch rather than phrase it as "Life of the Campanian" but it also feels unnatural to say a long-lived group like Animalia is best described as being "Phanerozoic"
• Alternatively, :Category:Campanian first appearances categories are kept for long-lived groups (class and above?) and :Category:Campanian life is used as a parent category and also to house all other articles ("paleobiota of", genera, species, clades) and categories ("dinosaurs").
• Example categorizations:
• Lambeosaurus: :Category:Lambeosaurinae {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Dinosaur genera {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Campanian dinosaurs {{small|(Guideline 2)}}, :Category:Dinosaur Park Formation {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Taxa named by William Parks {{small|(Following WP:BIOG)}}, :Category:Fossil taxa described in 1923 {{small|(Guideline 1 & 3)}}, :Category:Dinosaurs of Canada {{small|(Guidelines 1 & 2 & 3)}}
• Paleobiota of the Yixian Formation: :Category:Yixian Formation {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Barremian life {{small|(Guideline 2)}}, :Category:Aptian life {{small|(Guideline 2)}}, :Category:Paleontology in Liaoning {{small|(Guideline 3)}}, ?:Category:Paleoecology {{small|(as Paleobiota lacks an article and Paleoenvironment lacks a category)}}
• Conodont: :Category:Conodonts {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, ?:Category:Furongian first appearances {{small|(Guideline 2?)}}, ?:Category:Hettangian extinctions {{small|(Guideline 2?)}}, :Category:Fossil taxa described in 1856 {{small|(Guideline 1 & 3)}}, :Category:Chordate classes {{small|(Guideline 3)}}
• Paleontology: :Category:Paleontology {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Earth sciences {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Evolutionary biology {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Fossils {{small|(Guideline 1)}}, :Category:Historical geology {{small|(Guideline 1)}}

:As the proposer, I support all guidelines, but I think discussion on each individual guideline could be a reasonable way to focus discourse. These guidelines overlap in some aspects, such as #1 and #3 both allowing for categorization by year through List of years in paleontology (mainspace) and "by year of description", or through List of Asian dinosaurs and "by location". It is important to note that as categories such as :Category:Early Cretaceous ceratopsians do not fall under any of the guidelines for creation (not tied to a mainspace article, neither :Category:Early Cretaceous nor :Category:Ceratopsia needs to or should be diffused in this way, it is not a container category, and its creation was not discussed) it would be abandoned as a redirect or deleted until a discussion deems its use to be supported. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:32, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::Support for all the above proposals. If the project as a whole decides that more specific categories are needed once we establish this general guideline, we can address that at a later time. Delineations like "X animals of Y country from Z time period" are better left to the mainspace articles for geological formations and don't need to exist as an independent categorization scheme in my opinion. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 04:49, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

:::As an addendum, I think the "Campanian first appearances" category form should be limited to high taxonomic ranks or for groups that have extant members, if it is going to be kept at all. Otherwise, it will be overwhelmingly just a dumping ground for extinct genera, many of which will have lived exclusively in that time period, and therefore don't warrant secondary categorization which already exists under the "Campanian life" categorization scheme. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 04:54, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

::Support all of the above proposals. I commend your effort and I believe this should be applied to all of WP:TOL. I am making the effort of applying it to WP:PROTIST, particularly guidelines 1 and 2 which are the main (if not the exclusive) focus of this subproject when it comes to categories. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:::As a small comment, I instinctively think that common names (such as in your example "ornithiscians") sound more natural for categories, but I now realize that matching the category names to the article namespaces leads to more stability. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:23, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Yeah I would agree that common named feels better, but it becomes problematic when you come across things without a consensus common name (which is quite a lot in paleontology) so I think following the guideline of WP:C2D is best. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:03, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:General Support – sounds reasonable. Some details remain unclear to me; e.g., I assume that :Category:Campanian life is limited to fossil taxa, and to taxa at genus level or below – or would an article such as bivalve be simply categorized within :Category:Phanerozoic life? Is Paleobiota of the Kristianstad Basin properly categorized in :Category:Campanian life? Does the above mean that the category :Category:Taxa named by Richard Owen would be deleted? What about :Category:Carnian first appearances? Maybe a little list with category types that would be deleted/redirected would be helpful. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::I've added some notes about category types proposed to keep or not and reasons why with reference to the guidelines above. For other notes I think its fair to say I'm not solid about what to do specifically. I would say Bivalvia can be categorized as either :Category:Phanerozoic life, which is of little use, or alternatively :Category:Cambrian (not :Category:Cambrian life) because the evolution in the Cambrian is what is of the greatest notability. The "first appearances" and "last appearances" categories, if believed to be kept, should very much be restricted to groups that existed for longer than an era, and not applied to genera or species. Paleobiota of the Kristianstad Basin could be placed simply as :Category:Late Cretaceous life since it spans multiple epochs, or :Category:Late Cretaceous. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 01:55, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks. I would tend to say that categories like :Category:Campanian first appearances for long-lived groups are not very helpful; we usually can't pin that down to individual stages, right? If we have first appearances categories for long-lived groups, I would say it should be :Category:Cretaceous first appearances, without diffusing into stages. Another note: From your examples, I am unsure about :Category:Dinosaur genera, isn't that redundant with :Category:Lambeosaurinae? And why would Lambeosaurus be within :Category:Dinosaur genera to start with rather than :Category:Ornithischian genera? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::::The :Category:Dinosaur genera is essentially just a category equivalent to the mainspace article List of dinosaur genera. I am opposed to the diffusion into :Category:Ornithischian genera and :Category:Sauropodomorph genera etc because those start to create overlap with the taxonomic categories (which includes :Category:Lambeosaurinae). The categorization of all ranks such as "genera" or "families" is a precedent used in many other projects like WP:BIRD or WP:MAMMAL but given most of paleontology only uses genera and species consistently I don't think other "rank" categories are needed. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:56, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:I've been following this discussion without especially strong opinions, but I think the proposal laid out here makes sense and I'll throw out another voice of support. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 04:33, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose deletion of the longstanding [temporal Epoch] [taxa group] of [continent] cats e.g. Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia. After a few days of thought I am willing to compromise on the Early Cretaceous ceratopsia and ceraptopsia of Asia et al categories I created and have them deleted if others have disagreed with their creation/use. Lavalizard101 (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• :So what are your thoughts about the guidelines proposed? LC dinosaurs of Asia is a possible way to diffuse :Category:Dinosaurs of Asia, but alternatively (and following other projects for consistency) that is already covered by the country-level diffusion. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:15, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I think in terms of the taxonomic categories then we need to make them consistent with articles e.g. :Category:Iguanodontia needs sorting out as Iguanodontia now redirects to Ornithopoda. C2C applies to the [temporal Epoch] [taxa group] of [continent] category tree so that's fine, bullet point 2 I feel is not necessary as the only categories with which the 200+ would apply to are Category:Dinosaur genera which if we were to diffuse to Ornithsichia genera would lead to too much overlap with the taxonomic categories, and maybe some of the [temporal age] life cats, which could then be diffused via major taxonomic groupings as needed. Guideline 3 I disagree with only bc Mammals or Birds don't have "by geological time" container categories, they do have Prehistoric mammal/bird cats which then have geological time period subcats within the [temporal Epoch] [taxa group] of [continent] category tree system within them e.g. Prehistoric mammals has the subcat Mesozoic mammals with Cretaceous and Jurassic subcats and MM of continent cats, (with Jurassic mammals of [continent] being in both). GUideline 4 is kind of redundant as how would someone judge if something is questionable or not afterall the system in place for years hasn't been seen as questionable by others (AFAICT) until this discussion. Guideline 5 I would add that for long-ranging genera that would fit multiple cats e.g. Ceratodus just period is fine over it being listed in every single Age's life/genus cats. Guideline 6 I agree with as in my opinion taxonomic ranks above genera probably shouldn't be categorised into by location/of country cats, or even the [temporal Epoch] [taxa group] of [continent] category tree and have been removing said ranks from said cats when I come across them. Lavalizard101 (talk) 15:43, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::The importance of Guideline 2 is largely to topics that affect WP:Paleo more than smaller projects like WP:Dino. :Category:Campanian life for example definitely needs to be diffused once it is properly populated, similar things for something like :Category:Dinosaurs of North America. Guideline 3 has the "geologic time" added relative to other projects because WP:Paleo doesn't only cover modern animals like the wikiprojects on living groups. I feel like separating by time is as fundamental to paleo as separating by location which is why I added it. Guideline 4 is entirely meant for those who reference the guidelines AFTER this discussion in weeks or months of years time, so that a large-scale discussion on ALL categories doesn't have to happen again. I think your note for Guideline 5 is already included.
• :::I think Guideline 1 is the only area where we still have largely opposite positions. Part of this discussion, and something said by others above such as @FunkMonk or Cynical, is that the "established category trees" per WP:C2C is overdoing it. It's inclusion in the guideline was meant to allow for comparisons to other projects like WP:BIOG or WP:MAMMAL where there are similarities or overlap, and not as a circular argument to keep all the existing categories. If you want, we can have a separate keep/delete for the [time] [group] [place] categories that can be then used as an "established scheme" per WP:C2C, but I would rather not assume they are "established" a priori. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 19:05, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::My point about guideline 3 is that the current system of cats by geological age for WP:MAmmal and WP:Bird is Prehistoric [taxa] by age has Era subcats with Period subcats as well as Era [taxa] of [continent] as well as [taxa] by age (for extinct taxa such as trilobites, with [taxa] by continent again having Period/Epoch subcats) (with Period/Epoch subcats as needed rather than :Category:Dinosaurs by age having just individual ages so for consistency either they all need renaming or Dinosaurs by age does with dinosaurs by age also having TJC subcats. And also why just dinosaurs for diffusing the temporal cats? after all paleozoic life cats would still need diffusing what groups would you split of from it? Thats what I am on about in regards to your diffusing temporal cats being somehat still arbitrary. Just dinos for diffusion seems arbitrary. and guideline 4 is still ambiguous as some would ask why say Campanian reptiles is less arbitrary/more questionable then Campanian dinosaurs and how would we define which diffusing cats are questionable? Also what is your opinion on long ranging genera such as Ceratodus in terms of temporal categorisation, the current system is to place it in the Mesozoic bony fish instead of all 3 subcats, but your ie on point 5 mainly talks about uncertain age genera, should that be slightly reworded to say "taxon of uncertain age or multiple age ranges" this would help ease some confusion as to whether 5 just applies to uncertain age rather than long lasting taxa. ?
• ::::the estabilshed rule in C2C still applies to a priori establishment, and Funkmonk hasn't specified what his views fully are, he just say the current way is overcategorised (this was when we were still including EC Ceratopsians and Ceratopsians of Asia) so his argument in that context could be that the overcategorised part is the system of my invention (EC Ceratpsians and Ceratopsians et al.) or it could be that there are too many cats like say LC vertebrates containing LC fish and LC tetrapods (with LC tetrapods including a sep cat for Amphibians, Reptiles and synapsids (with Mammals falling in Synapsids and Birds within dinosaurs in these cats) when LC tetrapods may not be necessary, without funkmonk expanding on his reasoning we cannot assume that he is on about the full a priori established scheme or part of it. Lavalizard101 (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::All of the geological age categories of WP:MAMMAL and WP:BIRD come from the same source as those present in WP:PALEO and WP:DINO: the results of several thousand categories and articles being created by a single editor without discussion. Categorization (and WP:Portals) are some of the most-neglected aspects of the wiki, which is why I don't feel it is beneficial to use the work of a single editor, without discussion, as precedent, even though others followed without question for years. The choice to separate at Dinosaurs rather than some other group is directly noted as Guideline 2.2: Dinosaurs is the topic of WP:Dino and provides the most natural diffusion point. The same should exist for other wikiprojects. Diffusing "life" into the active wikiprojects (WP:TOL#Inner) provides the most objective line to follow, giving us diffusion points at topics such as plants, fish, insects, birds, mammals etc. All of those feel like fairly natural and acceptable diffusion points, given each wikiproject has its own "main category" (see how :Category:Birds functions as both an umbrella category for the WikiProject as well as a general category) which is why that diffusion guideline was suggested as well as Guideline 6.2. Dinosaurs have been a 'test-case' for this, which is why I haven't rolled out complete overhauls of pseudosuchian or synapsid categorization before we figured out these guidelines, but the lack of current categories along the same scheme for other groups shouldn't be used to dissuade this.
• :::::I'll revise the wording of Guideline 5 per your suggestion. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:29, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Also for the possibility of more opinions I've made a note at Wikiproject Animals as ppl there may have opinions regarding extinct taxa and WP:Mammals and WP:Birds wikiprojects work withto extinct/fossils as well. Lavalizard101 (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

:Another thought I've had about the "first appearance"/"extinction" categories is that maybe they should all be deleted, and be replaced with categories relating to say the Cambrian explosion or Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction where only groups that evolved/went extinct during those events are categorized. Otherwise extinctions or evolutions are not very notable relative to the background extinction rate. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:19, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::I support this proposal, although I think that for large clades, keeping the "first appearances" to period-level resolution is useful. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 07:15, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Another thing to comment on is whether we apply "Taxa named by" categories to higher-level groups? Technically speaking something like Heterodontosauridae is a "taxon name" and not a "taxon". Nomenclature and taxonomy are separate where taxon names are defined, but not taxa. When I did recategorization of these higher-level groups, almost all did not have "Fossil taxa described in" categories, and most did not have "Taxa named by" categories so I removed all for consistency, but maybe they can or should be readded? Though groups are not really "described" in addition to not being "taxa". IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:59, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

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)

: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)

::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)

:::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)

:::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)

:::::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)

: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)

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 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2014.06.011 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)

: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)

::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)

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, [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340983983_The_Fossil_Record_of_the_Pancrustacea 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)

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)

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.

{{flatlist|

• Admiralteistva Svita
• Alamyshyk Svita
• Astashikhian Menmber
• Balabansai Svita
• Belebeiskava Svita
• Beleuta Svita^
• Bereznikovskaya Svita
• Beshtyube Svita
• Bissekty Svita
• Bogdinskaya Svita
• Bostobe Svita
• Bukobay Gorizont^
• Bukobay Svita
• Byzovskaya Svita
• Charkabozhskaya Svita
• Dabrazinskaya Svita
• Darbasa Svita
• Donguz Gorizont
• Dvuroginskian Gorizont
• Eginsai Svita
• Elton Gorizont
• Fedorovskaya Svita
• Fedorovskian Subgorizont
• Gamskaya Svita
• Gamskian Subgorizont^
• Ilekskaya Svita
• Inder Gorizont
• Intinskaya Svita
• Karabastau Svita
• Karakhskaya Svita
• Keryamaiolskaya Svita
• Khodzhakul Svita
• Kopanskaya Svita
• Krasnokamenskaya Svita
• Kumanskaya Svita
• Kutulukskaya Svita
• Kzylsaiskaya Svita
• Lestanshorskaya Svita
• Lipovskaya Svita^
• Madygen Svita^
• Malokinel'skaya Svita
• Meshcherskii Gorizont
• Mogoito Member
• Moskvoretskaya Svita
• Murtoi Svita
• Nadkrasnokamenskaya Svita
• Nizhneustinskaya Svita
• Nyadeitinskaya Svita
• Petropavlovskaya Svita^
• Pizhmomezenskaya Svita
• Poldarsinskaya Svita
• Ryabinskian Member
• Rybinskaya Svita
• Rybinskian Gorizont
• Salarevskaya Svita
• Severodvinskian Gorizont
• Sheshminskian Gorizont
• Shilikhinskaya Svita
• Sludkinskaya Svita
• Sludkian Gorizont
• Staritskaya Svita
• Sukhonskaya Svita
• Syninskaya Svita
• Syuksyukskaya Svita
• Taikarshin Beds
• Talkhabskaya Svita
• Teryutekhskaya Svita
• Ubukunskaya Svita
• Urzhumian Gorizont
• Ust'mylian Gorizont
• Vetlugian Supergorizont
• Vokhminskaya Svita
• Vokhmian Gorizont
• Vyatskian Gorizont
• Yalovach Svita
• Yarenskian Gorizont
• Yushatyr' Svita

}}

^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)

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)

: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)

::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)

: 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)

::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)

:::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)

• 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)
• :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)

:::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)

::::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)

:::::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)

:::::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)

::::::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)

::(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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Parirau_ataroa 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)

::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)

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

I wonder, how unwieldy would an article about informally named prehistoric reptiles in general be? In theory we're tripling the scope, but I don't think Paleozoic reptiles are really going to be bringing a huge swamp of quantity if we're not including synapsids. Not sure how many informally named Cenozoic squamates there are, though. Reptiles as a whole is definitely a defensibly recognized category of life. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:52, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

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 {{u|Plantdrew}}, who does a lot of work on taxoboxes). Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

: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 {{U|DrawingDinosaurs}} in June and July 2020, where higher level ichnotaxa sourced to [http://www.paleofile.com/Demo/Mainpage/Taxalist/Ichnology.htm 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: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATaxonomy%2FPlesiothornipos&diff=966084168&oldid=763043111 Pleisothornipos], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATaxonomy%2FSatapliasauropus&diff=962194023&oldid=883983570 Satapliasauropus], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATaxonomy%2FParachirotheriidae&diff=962211657&oldid=762977265 Parachirotheriidae], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATaxonomy%2FPengxianpus&diff=964670581&oldid=763003060 Pengxianpus]. It wasn't just DrawingDinosaurs though; I made a bad edit myself by adding a biotaxon as parent to [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATaxonomy%2FOphiomorpha&diff=987105468&oldid=985146322 Ophiomorpha]. Plantdrew (talk) 19:45, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::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)

:::{{tl|Ichnobox}} IS the infobox for trace fossil ichnotaxa; I don't think any other new infobox is needed. You can set "Ichnos" as {{para|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)

::::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)

::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)

:::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:

:::#We do not include biotaxa in ichnoboxes.

:::#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)

::::I think that is a reasonable reasonable approach. Implementing it would entail reviewing every taxonomy template for an ichnotaxon. There are 245 articles using {{Tl|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)

::::: This search finds [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=rank+insource%3A%2Frank+*%3D+*ichno%2F&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns10=1 316 taxonomy templates] with {{para|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)

:::::: Thanks both. Yes, I would definitely some help. It could be a longer-term goal. I see that {{u|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)

::::: This search finds [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=rank+insource%3A%2Frank+*%3D+*ichno%2F+insource%3A%2FPaleofile%2F&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns10=1 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 [https://paleobiodb.org/classic/basicTaxonInfo?taxon_no=txn:378354 Amphisauropus] which it says has the parent taxon Amphibia. But if you look at the paper it gives as the source, which is [https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/21416.pdf 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)

:::::: 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)

::::::: 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)

:::::::: 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)

::::::::: "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)

::::::::::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)

:::::::::::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)

:::::::::::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)

::::::::::{{ping|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)

:::::::::::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 [https://www.scup.com/doi/full/10.1111/let.12184]. 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)

::::::::::::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)

{{outdent}} 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)

Seems to me like this kind of fizzled out without large scale action being implemented. Maybe it's worth taking it to WT:TOL for more eyes? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello! I am presently clearing through a category which lists pages citing retracted papers. I am by no means an all-knowing polymath so when these extend beyond more clear cut cases about fraud it is best to get someone more familiar with the topic to figure out the most appropriate way to untangle these.

Plesiornis is a stub page citing only one source which originally reported its existence. As RetractionWatch summarized:

{{blockquote|Two of three authors in Argentina of a 2002 paper purporting to show evidence of bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic age have retracted it after subsequent research suggested their estimates were off.}}

My initial thoughts would be to either delete the page, or to rework the page to explain the context of the subsequent research and retraction to make it clear that the original article is unsupported by later research. It would be appreciated if someone could take a look at the page and help get it to where it needs to be. Relm (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

:I disagree with deleting it because 1) the main focus of that cited paper itself is not about Plesiornis (and the fossils presented in that retracted paper are not Plesiornis); 2) this ichnogenus is validly named in a much earlier paper. What we should do in this case is just cite sources that directly discuss about Plesiornis, and delete that retracted source. Junsik1223 (talk) 01:37, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you for the explanation. I am glad to have posted it here to ensure someone who understands it can determine how best to reflect the sources. Relm (talk) 03:31, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

What rank should Vendobionta's taxobox use? All the sources I know of rank it as either kingdom (e.g. [https://dx.doi.org/10.1144%2Fgsjgs.149.4.0607]), phylum (e.g. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2401145]), class (e.g. [https://dx.doi.org/10.2517%2Fprpsj.7.43] [https://dx.doi.org/10.1144%2FSP286.28]), or even just a "large group" implied to be unranked (?) (e.g. [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrey-Ivantsov-2/publication/357181675_Symmetry_of_Vendobionta_Late_Precambrian_Metazoa/links/623dd3457931cc7ccff65f5c/Symmetry-of-Vendobionta-Late-Precambrian-Metazoa.pdf]), but never "superphylum" as stated in the taxobox currently. This last one I suspect was made up as an attempt to resolve the group having phyla as subdivisions while keeping it within Animalia, but frankly that sounds like WP:SYNTH. Monster Iestyn (talk) 13:30, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

: Looking at the taxonomy template, it started off as kingdom (unsourced) and was converted to phylum (with IRMNG as source). Then there was a bit of an edit war over using superphylum (because it contains other phyla) or phylum (because that is what the source says). As several other vendobiont atricles are using phyla for subdivisions, we can't use phyla and if it is now considered an animal then kingdom is inappropriate. I think unranked is the best solution (although how to source this?), if not ideal.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, unranked is my leaning too, though I am hesitant to actually make the change myself because Vendobionta is not universally accepted in the first place anyway (given it may be paraphyletic), which would make it not so important to make it a rank higher than phylum at all. Case in point, currently only Petalonamae of the main included groups/phyla directly links to Vendobionta in its taxobox on Wikipedia, while Proarticulata and Trilobozoa do not. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:48, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::@Jts1882 ...Hm, since nobody else has responded or objected in any way, I've gone ahead and now edited Template:Taxonomy/Vendobionta to use "unranked" instead of superphylum. Lacking a better reference, I have inferred the lack of rank from one of Ivantsov's publications on Vendobionta. Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:53, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I've opened a merge proposal for these two pages (which cover the same clade under different names), with a discussion located at Talk:Ornithocheiridae. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 15:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

After some discussion on discord with Hemiauchenia, Gasmasque, and others, I've drafted the following proposal to be included on the project page (and/or some of its subpages). This would allow for the robust implementation of the WikiProject "importance scale" (top, high, mid, and low) for paleontology articles and would allow us to create a list of "high-importance articles needing attention" to help direct the efforts of current and future editors, which would itself also be posted on the project page. I'm posting this here to see if anyone has any objections or additions to implementing this concept.

The explanation would read as follows:

The following are articles that have been assessed by members of WikiProject Palaeontology as being of high-importance but being severely lacking in their coverage. These articles are about organisms and concepts that are important for a variety of historical, cultural, or scientific reasons, but unfortunately their current coverage on Wikipedia falls very short of the standards of an encyclopedia. This list exists to help editors, and potential editors, who may be interested in helping WikiProject Palaeontology in the areas where that help is most desperately needed.

Articles which meet 7 or more of these criteria will be considered "High Importance", and articles that meet 5-6 of these criteria will qualify for "Mid-level Importance".

Comments welcome. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:21, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:Honestly I'm someone skeptical of this kind of criterion list - subjective assessment of the individual case will lead to more meaningful assignments, I think. But if it's just a guideline I think that would be okay, and the articles in need of attention list sounds useful. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 03:24, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::I agree that any edge-cases can and should be handled individually. This is more of a guideline to implementing the use of importance ratings at all so that they can then be used to focus editing efforts. If multiple people agree that an article should be "high importance", but it only meets 5 of these criteria, then I think its fine to assess that article on an individual basis. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:30, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::I think of this as guidelines that are inherently still going to contain some subjectivity. Talking with you about which pterosaur topics would qualify based solely on personal rankings was helpful for gauging the very top few most important taxa that could be unanimously agreed on, but I think it showed the need for some (somewhat more) objective criteria for edge cases. Editor's area of interest is going to affect which taxa they consider the most important, but because that may not be applicable to an importance rating that is meant to apply to an entire Wikiproject I think it makes sense to have a set of criteria to compare with. This is also something of an effort to tone down the dinosaur bias, whose importance rating within WP:Dinosaurs does not necessarily reflect its importance rating for WP:Paleontology as a whole. For example, the conodont article is rated as low importance to WP:Paleo, and the brachiopod article isn't even considered relevant to the Wikiproject. I think the article importance rating is an underused system that could be put to good use to find articles in need of work, and it has been largely neglected by this project. Gasmasque (talk) 03:37, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I think this method is a good foundational step to go alongside the blanket reratings of articles. If we set all the article importances to a consistent level, then when the articles get expanded or edited or reviewed later on their importance can be "refined" in a slightly subjective way. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:56, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Brachiopod not being tagged for WikiProject Palaeontology doesn't mean it's not relevant to palaeontology. As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been any systematic effort to add WikiProject Palaeontology banners to all taxa known only from fossils, let alone taxa that are predominantly known from fossils (such as brachipods). Years ago (2015?) I made a systematic effort to make sure every taxon article had a WikiProject banner; I was mostly adding banners for the taxon based WikiProjects (Fishes, Birds, Plants, etc.), but I was adding Palaeontology where it was clearly relevant (i.e. taxa known only from fossils).

:::At that time, I wasn't adding banners for taxon based WikiProjects if a banner for Palaeontology or Marine life was present. A few years later a few editors, including myself, went through the articles with only Palaeontology/Marine life, and added banners for taxon based WikiProjects. But I don't think anybody has ever tried to systematically add Palaeontology (or Marine life) banners to relevant articles that only have a banner for a taxon based WikiProject. [https://petscan.wmcloud.org/?sparql=&ores_prob_from=&templates_use_talk_no=on&format=html&show_redirects=no&ns%5B0%5D=1&categories=Mesozoic+life&smaller=&search_max_results=500&maxlinks=&search_wiki=&page_image=any&search_filter=&templates_no=WikiProject+Palaeontology&common_wiki=auto&before=&cb_labels_any_l=1&depth=8&links_to_any=&sortby=title&negcats=Extant+Mesozoic+first+appearances%0D%0ABirds+by+continent&edits%5Banons%5D=both&manual_list=&links_to_no=&interface_language=en&common_wiki_other=&labels_no=&cb_labels_yes_l=1&min_sitelink_count=&active_tab=tab_categories&show_soft_redirects=both&wikidata_prop_item_use=&language=en&larger=&combination=subset&templates_any=&links_to_all=&wikidata_source_sites=&cb_labels_no_l=1&langs_labels_no=&output_compatability=catscan&sortorder=ascending&project=wikipedia&referrer_url=&doit= Here is a search]] in :Category:Mesozoic life for articles that aren't tagged for WikiProject Palaeontology. Most of the 603 results are taxa known only from fossils (and thus presumably relevant to this project). I'm not interested in working on tagging them myself right now, but if somebody else wants to tag them, I'd encourage them to do so. Plantdrew (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:I guess it should be mentioned that these criteria are primarily intended to evaluate family-level and below taxon articles. They are of course essentially useless to evaluate broader concepts under the paleontological umbrella, fossil formations, or to an extent higher level taxa. Those might be better evaluated on a case-by-case basis or see a similar set of criteria proposed at a later date. The main focus here is prioritizing taxon articles that warrant immediate attention, hence the smaller-level taxon bias. Gasmasque (talk) 04:54, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:I'm responding to my own post with some recommendations from discussions on discord so we have record of them. Suggestions include:

:*We should omit monotypic families/orders/etc from the "name-bearing taxon" criterion.

:*We should create a specific list of textbooks for consideration in the textbook criterion.

:A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:59, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::Minor quibble, but why 1600 CE? 1500 is the cutoff for what the IUCN evaluates as (recently) extinct. Is there another organization that uses 1600? I realize that 1500 is arbitrary but it makes more sense to me as a round number that is closer to the beginning of the Age of Discovery. And of course there are edge cases, but I believe that articles on New Zealand and Hawaiian organisms known from subfossils are more likely to be tagged for WikiProject Extinction than WikiProject Palaeontology (and New Zealand/Hawaiian extinctions occurred both after human settlement of the islands and before 1500, as well as after 1500, but before European discovery of the islands; but I don't think the IUCN necessarily evaluates post 1500, pre-European discovery extinctions for Hawaii and New Zealand). Plantdrew (talk) 16:27, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::The choice of 1600 was selected specifically to exclude the Dodo, but I have no strong opinions about what the precise cutoff is. Most of these criteria would be applied to taxa that have been extinct for millions of years anyways, so the precise cutoff for what counts as a "recent" extinction is of little importance to me as long as it's recent enough that it includes all the late Pleistocene extinctions. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:This feels rather vertebrate centric to me. How do most of these criteria apply to areas OUTSIDE of vertebrate paleontology, such as paleomalacology, paleoentomology, and paleobotany. For example "Be known from a fossil locality of recognized importance", this is very much a vertebrate thing, as the "important" sites for paleobotany are NOT the same ones as for vertebrates (consider the number of protected areas focused on plants vers on Verts). The majority of insect fossils of modern importance are not in any way named by "famous people", and quite often fall into extant upper taxa. I feel this is again a situation where 1/4 of the paleontology topics is dominating the situations.--Kevmin § 00:54, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::These are fair and reasonable criticisms, and these criteria were indeed developed primarily by editors focused on vert paleo. We did discuss possible biases in our proposed method at length on discord, as we are aware that wikipedia generally has a strong bias towards vert paleo, and we are not attempting to perpetuate this. As there is a general lack of in-depth knowledge about invertebrates, plants, and fungi among the editors involved in this effort, we would generally defer to those with that specialized knowledge.

::Basically what I'm saying is that these criteria were developed as a means of including more taxa as being "high importance" because our view is that too many important articles are underrated. These criteria are not intended to be used to exclude non-vertebrate taxa and subjects besides taxa. Obviously, the other four paleo fields are important and articles important to those fields should receive independent evaluation for use by WP:PAL. These criteria are not intended to be an exclusive means of evaluating article importance. If editors with detailed knowledge of paleobotany, etc have criteria that they believe could be more appropriate to assess the importance of those topics, I would certainly welcome that. The scope of our effort is mostly to expand coverage of non-dinosaur vertebrates on wikipedia and is necessarily limited for that reason. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:32, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think the problem here is rather that it focus on taxa, especially genera, but our project is not just about taxa (even though we focus on genera at the moment). That being said, I would argue that the importance of taxa does not depend on the paleontologist that named them, nor on the importance of the fossil deposit where they were found (to the contrary, I think that's pretty bad – we would create bias towards the well-known localities while neglecting others). Also, the requirement of "known to science for more than 10 years" is super arbitrary (rather than objective) and does make little sense to me, too (Google Scholar counts already cover this, since they increase over time). So I would suggest to remove these three points. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:08, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
• :The word "objective" here is not meant to indicate "not-arbitrary". All of these criteria are arbitrary, but they are generally "objective" in the sense that they are specific and measurable (with a few exceptions).
• :Our primary area of concern with this effort is indeed taxa, and these criteria are not meant to be an exclusive means of determining article importance. Some articles, for instance Convergent evolution or History of Earth, are very important and are recognized as such by WP:PAL, even though these articles cannot really be evaluated by the proposed criteria. What we're trying to do is codify a set of guidelines for what counts as a high-importance taxon article so that we can point to them and say, "Here's a high-importance article and its only start-class," to try and encourage new or existing editors to help in these areas.
• :Regarding the removal of criteria, I'm not at all opposed to that. The 10 criteria we settled on do have some overlap, as you've illustrated, and we did try to minimize this. In addition to removing the ones you've suggested, do you have any suggestions for adding criteria we don't have represented? A Cynical Idealist (talk) 07:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:I could think of no better test of the criteria than trying it out for myself in my sandbox for some fish genera (my main area of interest) and I am not liking the results. I think the criteria (here modified to an 8/10 for a pass and any uncertain cases counted as a "no") are still too loose, and are letting decidedly non high-importance taxa through without issue. Of the genera below that passed the test I would only reasonably consider 4 of them (Dunkleosteus, Cladoselache, Cheirolepis, Acanthodes) to be genera of high-importance to paleontology as a field/deserving of special coverage in an encyclopedia, and one of the genera that failed spectacularly (Enteolognathus primoridalis) to qualify for high-importance as well. Maybe I'm just too conservative with my picks, especially since the end goal here would be a compiled list of important taxa with poor coverage. Do other editors think that Xenacanthus, Hybodus and Helicoprion warrant importance ratings equal to Lystrosaurus, Ichthyosaurus or Anomalocaris in a scenario where pop-culture significance is (mostly) cast aside? Even as an extinct shark editor I really don't think one could reasonably argue they do. Gasmasque (talk) 16:36, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::I think narrowing the criteria to, say 5, and making all of them required could be a solution to the possible leniency of the existing criteria. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:40, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• Passing observation: The ongoing healthy conversations about Top Importance articles kinda proves the point that subjective case-by-case assessments are better than objective criteria (as mentioned by LittleLazyLass above). Cougroyalty (talk) 15:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
• :I'm increasingly inclined to agree, at least for now, with the exception of that I think having an objective criteria list as a way to confidently demote articles that editors rate high importance/have previously rated high importance is ideal. I for example do not focus on fossil snakes, so I wasn't really comfortable/confident demoting Madsoiidae from high-importance without running it through the criteria set first (although this may be a moot point since I did also consult with other editors). It, if nothing else, gets one in the head-space of evaluating taxon importance better than just brainstorming taxa that come to mind first (which tends to result in a heavy recency bias and insularity to whichever subfield of paleontology someone focuses on.) Gasmasque (talk) 16:24, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I've gone through and looked at some mostly or entirely extinct higher level fish taxa to evaluate coverage, importance/vital article status, and viewer interest on the Wiki itself, as well as coverage in several educational books and textbooks that I consider good print resources to turn to for information on the subject. Some of these books are contemporary (or were contemporary at the time these pages were first created in the mid-late 2000s), while some are now quite old, which is deliberate to avoid a recency bias. As a bit of an odd pick, I've also looked through a popular contemporary textbook on the broader field of historical geology to check if taxa are noteworthy even outside the field of vertebrate paleontology or paleoichthyology. This is in no way a scientific or all encompassing survey, it is of course still biased towards works that cover fossil vertebrates (and fish in particular) and does not take into account the fact that the Wiki's broader "vital article" ratings are something of a joke, but I think it's a step in the right direction for gauging which taxa warrant editor attention. I'm of the opinion that because WikiProject Paleontology is encompassing vertebrate paleontology, invertebrate paleontology, paleobotany, ichnology, and broader geology, all of these should see their own evaluations by editors familiar with the subject who then can open the gates for discussion among more general paleo editors. Best case scenario is that, from multiple surveys like this, a definitive standard for article importance can be created to make that metric less useless, a prioritized list of important articles in need of improvement can be written, and Wikipedia's coverage can extend to similar levels to a print encyclopedia on paleontology. The project's dinosaur coverage being better (or just more active) than its everything else coverage is well known, but there are actually a lot of individual editors who are clearly passionate and interested in the other branches of paleontology and I think this could prove to be a good way to channel editor enthusiasm into something that will bring other fields up to the dino standard.

While Linnaean taxonomy is of course not much of a thing anymore, it was mentioned in a discussion on the Discord that entirely extinct class-level animal taxa (or equivalent rankings) may be worthy of high-importance and extensive article coverage by default. I've looked through extinct or nearly-extinct vertebrate classes (invertebrates are an endeavor for later) and a few groups sometimes elevated or downgraded to class status, and found that many are indeed considered high-importance and some are even considered vital articles by Wikipedia at large. I've also found that these ranking are inconsistent across taxa that are given similar significance/weight in print sources and, most importantly, that the articles are terrible when compared to many print sources. Only a single paleo-fish higher level group is B-class (none were higher).

Paleo-fish higher level groups:

• Agnatha: Level 4 vital article; an infraphylum widely used in a paleontological context to encompass extinct jawless fishes (armored and unarmored) by both contemporary and historic works on fish and vertebrate evolution (e.g. Philippe Janvier's Early Vertebrates (1996), John Long's Rise of Fishes (2011), Michael Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2015), Alfred Romer's Vertebrate Paleontology (1966); Robert Carroll's Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution (1988)) and in more general geology texts (e. g. Wicanter & Monroe's Historical Geology (2016)); a paraphyletic grade which is still extant via the traditionally included Cyclostomi and the excluded descendent taxon Gnathostomata; not currently considered of interest by WP:Paleo; C-class article; 300-400 daily pageviews
• Ostracoderm: Level 4 vital article; an informal group made up of the extinct, non-cyclostome members of Agnatha that is given extensive coverage in all the above sources; an evolutionary grade that is, as conventionally defined, entirely extinct; ancestral to gnathostomes and considered evolutionarily significant despite lack of taxonomic significance; currently ranked as high-importance; C-class article; 50-90 daily pageviews
• Conodont: Level 5 vital article; a class of jawless fish that only recently (1990s) have been recognized as definitive vertebrates, and thus unfairly excluded from older vertebrate evolution texts such as Carroll (1988) and Romer (1966), but included by Long (2011) and Benton (2015); extremely important index fossils discussed in general geology texts (e.g. Wicanter & Monroe (2016)); entirely extinct and not ancestors of living animals; considered low-importance (??????!!!!!!!!) by WP:Paleo; C-class article; 150-300 daily pageviews
• Pteraspidomorphi: Not considered vital; a superclass and/or class of jawless fish noted to include the very earliest members of the group; a comparatively recent name (widespread adoption in 1980s-1990s) to encompass heterostracans and earlier Ordovician fishes that has less historic precedent; discussed by Janvier (1996) and Benton (2015), and briefly mentioned by Carroll (1988), but not given substantial weight; entirely extinct; considered mid-importance to WP:Paleo; stub-class article; 25-60 daily pageviews
• Galeaspida: Level 5 vital article; a class of Asian jawless fish given brief mention in some vertebrate paleontology works (e.g. Romer, Carroll, Long) or excluded entirely from general-purpose historical geology texts (e. g. Wicanter & Monroe (2016)), though a particular included genus is given special focus in Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology and they are discussed at length by Janvier (1996); entirely extinct and not ancestors of gnathostomes; currently ranked as high-importance; C-class article (may warrant reranking and considered start-class); 20-50 daily pageviews
• Thelodonti: Level 5 vital article; a class of jawless fish of debatable evolutionary significance which receive extensive discussion in Janvier (1996) and Long (2011), minor mention in other cited vertebrate paleo texts and no mention in the cited historical geology text; scale fossils are significant in biostratigraphy as index fossils; entirely extinct and probably not an ancestor of any living group, although they are occasionally noted as possible chondrichthyan relatives/ancestors; currently ranked as high-importance; B-class article; 10-30 daily pageviews
• Anaspida: Level 5 vital article a; class of jawless fish mentioned only briefly in the vertebrate paleontology texts Carroll (1988) and Benton (2015), described extensively in Romer (1966), Long (2011) and Janvier (1996), and not mentioned at all in the historical geology text Wicanter & Monroe (2016); considered extinct, but sometimes suggested to be ancestors of lampreys in the past and of interest in discussions of cyclostome evolution; currently ranked high-importance; start-class article; 15-40 daily pageviews
• Pituriaspida: Not considered vital; a relatively recently described (1990s) class of Australian ostracoderms given only very brief mention in Janvier (1996), Benton (2015) and Long (2011) as poorly-known evolutionary novelties; entirely extinct and short-lived group, but share a number of features with gnathostomes; currently ranked as mid-importance; stub-class article; 10-25 daily pageviews
• Heterostraci: Not Considered vital; a class or subclass of specialized, "primitive" jawless fish that are noted to be extremely diverse; discussed at length separately from the Ordovician pteraspidomorphs by Benton (2015), Long (2011), Janvier (1996), and Romer (1966) and on equal (or greater) standing to the above classes in terms of coverage; entirely extinct and not considered ancestors of living fish; ranked as low-importance; start-class article; 10-30 daily pageviews
• Osteostraci: Not considered vital; a class of jawless fish which are sometimes called "cephalaspids" and are discussed at length in the previously cited works on vertebrate and fish evolution (e.g. Janvier (1996), Long (2011), Benton (2015), Romer (1966); Carroll (1988)), and though not mentioned by name in Wicanter & Monroe (2016) specific genera from the group are discussed as important ostracoderms; traditionally considered extinct but thought to represent important transitional taxa between jawed and jawless fish, and are often cited as both the best known and most "advanced" of ostracoderms (e.g. Long (2011); currently ranked as high-importance; start-class article; 35-70 daily pageviews
• Acanthodii: Level 4 vital article; a class of jawed fish that is paraphyletic and is today considered the ancestral to cartilaginous fish, but has historically been considered ancestral to bony fish or all jawed fish; given extensive description in all above geological and vertebrate paleontological sources with regards to their evolutionary significance (entire dedicated sections in Janvier (1996), Long (2011), and Benton (2015), included with placoderms in Romer (1966) and with bony fish in Carroll (1988), noted as a possible ancestor of other jawed fish in Wicanter & Monroe (2016); entirely extinct as conventionally defined; currently ranked mid-importance to WP:Paleo; C-class article (citations needed, barely scrapes start-class with uncited content removed); 100-200 daily pageviews
• Placodermi: Level 4 vital article; a class of jawed fish of historically debated evolutionary relations that are currently considered a paraphyletic group of stem-gnathostomes; given significant coverage and discussion in all previously mentioned sources of a similar or greater caliber to acanthodians; typifies the "age of fishes" and widely referenced with regards to paleontological significance; traditionally defined as extinct, disregarding excluded descendant taxa; currently ranked as mid-importance; C-class article; 200-300 daily pageviews
• Arthrodira: Not considered vital; an order of placoderms that includes the big scary predators that attract editor and page viewer interest (blows the other placoderm orders out of the water in this regard); not mentioned by name in the general geology textbook Wicanter & Monroe (2016) but discussed extensively in all other cited sources and consistently characterized as the most well-known and diverse group of placoderms; entirely extinct; currently ranked as high-importance (note that class Placodermi itself is only mid-importance) to the project; start-class article; 35-70 daily pageviews
• Antiarchi: Not considered vital; an order of placoderms given relatively brief note in Benton (2015) and Janvier (1996), and somewhat more extensive mention in Long (2011), Carroll (1988) and Romer (1966); entirely extinct and not regarded as relevant to vertebrate evolution at large, with interest moreso as evolutionary curiosities which caused great confusion when first discovered or directed at one specific well-known taxon; currently ranked as mid-importance; stub-class article; 10-30 daily pageviews
• Sarcopterygii/Crossopterygii; Level 4 vital article; used as an unranked clade containing several classes in modern classification, but a class itself in historic or more general works; Both Sarcopterygii and Crossopterygii (often separately) are discussed at great length in every source previously cited; includes tetrapods, although these are excluded from the group in older sources; extant because of unambiguous inclusion of Dipnoi and Actinistia; currently ranked as mid-importance; C-class article (IMO a strong C); 400-600 daily pageviews

These are what I'm going to include here. Dipnoi and Actinistia (does not have a separate article from Coelacanthiformes) are low-importance and high-importance to this project, respectively. Both focus primarily on the living representatives of their groups, which I think warrants discussion about how to balance the paleo and neontological organization of a clade that encompasses both extinct and extant members with extensive literature. If the conclusion of that discussion is to move huge swaths of content to Ceratodontiformes and Latimeria then I think these two classes deserve high-importance to paleontology. If they are left as-is they are definitely more under the authority of WP:Fishes. Crossopterygii, as pointed out above, does not have its own article due to being largely obsolete. Tetrapodomorphi, Stegocephalia, Labyrinthodontia, Temnospondyli, Lepospondyli, etc. all warrant discussion as well, and I think it is arguable that they may be high importance to the project. Gasmasque (talk) 17:40, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:From my (biased) viewpoint, many of these are potentially mid-importance, but I don't see many as being High importance. Notable exceptions are Conodonts, Anaspids (maybe), Acanthodians, and Placoderms, even though they are potentially paraphyletic they are notable historically and still used for substantial steps along the evolution of vertebrates. All the ranking systems are going to be a bit of a balancing act, but I am more partial to topics than clades being higher-importance, with exceptions for those clades that are both historically and currently notable. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:55, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::I think high importance should have plenty of taxa, personally, just fewer genera. I feel like to clarify (since I don't think I emphasized it well enough in the first post) that anaspids being ancestral to lampreys is essentially obsolete nonsense, and the significance this group holds (outside of being paleoichthyological novelties) is in a historic context. It can be thought of as similar to Lepospondyli in this respect, which as was pointed out below may warrant high-importance. I think a lot of the jawless fish classes are definitely too under-researched, obscure, or otherwise insignificant to warrant high importance, although I would want to see more included than just conodonts. It is also worth noting that of the proposed groups, only a couple contain any lower classifications that would be worth including; there's no genus of thelodont or anaspid I think deserves high or even mid importance. Gasmasque (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:When it comes to clades, I think its more reasonable to be arbitrary with which "ranks" deserve importance. Just because one "class" may be high importance, does not mean they all are. I agreed that this logic should apply to geologic time periods, but this case is different I think. I generally agree that Placodermi, Sarcopterygii, Agnatha, Acanthodii, and Conodont should all be high importance, but I don't think that each of the jawless fish "classes" necessitate inclusion in this category. I think the inclusion of clades in high importance should reflect their prevalence as study systems in the literature. Temnospondyli, Lepospndyli, and either Tetrapodomorpha or Stegocephalia (but probably not both) should also definitely qualify for high importance. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:31, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::I definitely agree that not all of the listed taxa warrant high-importance by default, including some of the ones that are currently listed as high-importance. I don't want to give the impression that I think all of these need to be brought to high-importance just because they're classes, that was just my criteria for including them in this survey because I can see that as a solid argument on its own. I would be fine to see several of these demoted to mid-importance, although personally I don't think any of them should be brought lower than that (with the possible exception of the less frequently used Pteraspidomorphi and Pituriaspida). Google Scholar hits are brought up as a criteria sometimes, and a quick survey of the listed articles and their plural/informal forms yields:

::Conodont/conodonts: 153k-183k results (is conodont top-importance? Tyrannosaurus scores 22k and Mammuthus 16k; ammonites are 103k and trilobites are 75k. Conodont is halfway to the level of hits as Foraminifera, and those are still alive!)

::Agnatha/agnathan/agnathans: 6k-12k ("agnatha" and "agnathans" 11k-12k; cheating because again, still alive)

::Placodermi/placoderm/placoderms: 2.9k-6.9k results (placoderms gets a lot more hits than Placodermi)

::Temnospondyli/temnospondyl/temnospondyls: 2.8k-3.2k results

::Labyrinthodontia/labyrinthodont/labyrinthodonts: 1.5k-3.1k

::Ostracoderm/ostracoderms: 2.9k results (both are in the 2,900s; "Ostracodermi" is seldom used)

::Acanthodii/acanthodian/acanthodians: 2.1k-2.9k results

::Crossopterygii/crossopterygian/crossopterygians: 1.8k-2.3k results

::Arthrodira/arthrodire/arthrodires: 1.4k-1.9k results

::Antiarchi/antiarch/antiarchs: 1k-1.4k results

::Heterostraci/heterostracan/heterostracans: 850-1.4k results

::Osteostraci/osteostracan/osteostracans: 500-1.3k results

::Thelodonti/thelodont/thelodonts: 700-1.3k results

::Anaspida/anaspid/anaspids: 700-1k results

::Lepospondyli/lepospondyl/lepospondyls: 600-1k results

::Stegocephalia/stegocephalian/stegocephalians: 700-800 results

::Tetrapodomorpha/tetrapodomorph/tetrapodomorphs: 500-800 results

::Galeaspida/galeaspid/galeaspids: 400-700 results

::Pteraspidomorphi/pteraspidomorpha: 400 results

::Pituriaspida/pituriaspid: 70-100 results (lol)

::Google scholar hits obviously aren't everything and bias older names, but I thought I would try this to compare (very roughly) how prevalence in the literature fairs for these groups. Scores are much lower across the board than I expected for almost everything, maybe there's just a lot less paleontology out there than I thought there was. Gasmasque (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Maybe using a cutoff date for any metric using Google scholar so we can test whether or not taxa are under ongoing study over the last, say 50 years. This would blunt (although not eliminate) the bias for taxa with older names, but it will expand this bias (in relative terms) to include taxa named before 1960, which is much more recent and reflects use in more modern paleontology literature. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:03, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

As an extension of the above post regarding what taxa warrant high-importance, I thought it was appropriate to ask what articles are best sorted as top-importance to the project? I've gone ahead and demoted specific articles like Poseidonia Shale from top importance based on my own judgement, as well as Jurassic, Paleogene and Neogene because it does not make sense to me for the Wikiproject to prioritize specific Phanerozoic periods above others in importance. I've also promoted Precambrian, Paleozoic and Mesozoic to top-importance, as only Cenozoic was listed previously and it seems logical to consider these broader eras to be more "important"/higher priority for the project than epochs and periods. While there was agreement to these decisions with a few other editors in the Discord, this is not at all satisfactory to make sweeping changes to the category. There seems to also be agreement, however, that the importance ratings of the project are largely ignored and irrelevant by editors, and that they do not accurately reflect the priorities of the project. Since this could be used as a helpful way of sorting which articles warrant attention from editors, it seems appropriate to invite other editors to give their opinions for how top-importance should be sorted. Also, feel free to revert any of the rerankings I've done if you feel they aren't appropriate. Gasmasque (talk) 07:24, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:I agree with the demotion of Posidonia Shale, Tendaguru Formation, and Ischigualasto Formation, as these are marginal formations in the context of paleontology as a whole. In my opinion the "top importance" category should include things that are basically essential reading to fully comprehend the basics of any given paleontology article. I personally think that the number of articles we have in top importance as of now is way too low. Top importance, while it should definitely be restrictive, should contain at least some articles that reflect greater detail on all the most important paleo concepts. I think every Phanerozoic period and all the Cenozoic epochs should be included, as well as a few important taxa, paleo-related locations, and some other key concepts. Basically my heuristic is that the top importance category should contain most or all of the information that would be included in the opening chapter of a children's book about paleontology. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::I agree with your heuristic but I don't think children's books namedrop Oligocene or Ordivician (but then again I wasn't a big reader in elementary school). I'd say most time divisions should remain high-importance, and top-importance should be reserved for either things which if you asked some random person "have you heard of [x]" they'll say "absolutely" like Tyrannosaurus; or large and kinda general overviews like History of Earth. I'm not sure if that's too conservative Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 23:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I generally think periods would be included. Sure a children's book is less likely to have "Silurian" vs "Jurassic", but I think if one is included, they should all be included, because excluding some while including others seems arbitrary. Like all heuristics, there are subjectivities and weaknesses, but I would like to push back on your final point a little bit. I do think that concepts the general public has knowledge of should be included, but I also think that Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, should not use an estimation of public knowledge as the sole, or even one of the main methods of determination for these subjects. Encyclopedias are necessarily education tools, so I think we shouldn't limit ourselves by an estimation of general knowledge when considering which articles are of top importance. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:40, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I mentioned it below, but I'm on the side of periods/epochs at High, rather than Top. I think some of them can make an argument for top importance and some of them can't, so if we agree we don't want all or nothing (wise, I think, if just to avoid having to sort them all out), then we're either dragging some up or dragging a few down. For me, there's only a handful that really feel like make a strong case for Top, and they don't feel that out of place down in High with the likes of Triceratops. Meanwhile there's a number of divisions like Miocene or Ordovician which would feel highly unusual amongst our shortlist of top-level articles. So I think we drag less down to high than we'd be dragging up to top. The concept of the geologic timescale and its major divisions (the eras) are already covered; I do not think every subdivision should just be assumed to be on that level. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:55, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:I think I'll summarize my thoughts on the Top Importance articles here. From my experience, we can generally break Paleontology down into some three to four topics, Paleontology, Geology, Evolution, and Extinction. I think Top Importance should best be restricted to the foundational or entrance level topics that all other articles build upon. Not saying that only those top 4 articles should be listed, but that the general idea of Top Importance should be things that are important to understand (like Paleobiology), or are gateways into the field (like Dinosaur). So I would suggest something for Top importance along the lines of:

:Paleontology - Biostratigraphy, Trace fossil {{small|(ichnology)}}, Paleobiology, Paleobotany, Paleoecology, Paleopathology, Taphonomy, Mary Anning

:Geology - Fossil, Absolute dating, Relative dating, Geologic time scale, Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Fossilization, Sedimentary rock, Ice Age, Charles Lyell

:Evolution - Dinosaur, Trilobite, Ammonite, Human evolution, Convergent evolution, Transitional fossil, Phylogenetics, Charles Darwin

:Extinction - Cambrian explosion, Woolly mammoth, Dodo, Extinction event, Tyrannosaurus, Archaeopteryx, Natural selection, Georges Cuvier

:The idea is that each of these articles or concepts is something that would be regularly referenced (or used as Section Titles), and that we limit ourselves to only a limited selection of secondary articles (taxa, authors, time units) that are of broader cultural importance but not as great scientific importance. Its definitely possible that I have overlooked or undergraded some articles, but in general this is the 'feeling' I would aim for with the Top status. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:01, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::I actually agree very closely with all the articles included in this list and the rationale behind them, and it lines up well with the chapters one would find in the table of contents of, say, a textbook for an introductory course in historical geology or paleontology. I think all of these articles really should be top priority to have to GA level or FA level and this would be a great lineup as, if nothing else, a starting point. It's a small manageable list of good picks, many of which are already top importance to the project and/or are already GA or FA. I think that more articles could be added, but as it stands I can't think of any reasonable objections to any of these articles as top-importance (I've retracted my statement about Darwin and the dodo being "more relevant to other projects" after further consideration). I think these could even serve as the basis for a task of "GA and FA reviewing or nominating every top-importance article", which I think @@Jens Lallensack proposed previously. If top-importance actually represented articles that a majority of active editors agreed were top-importance then I think that would be an equally sensible goal to the current dino FA review.

::To add onto this, I think a strong argument could be made for Pterodactylus as a top-importance article. It is currently considered high-importance, while pterosaur is instead listed as top-importance. It may seem odd to list a specific genus over its group, but I think in the context of sitting alongside articles like Archaeopteryx, extinction and George Cuvier it would make much more sense as a foundational pillar of the field than pterosaur more broadly, and in addition would round out the number of species/genera to five. Pterosaur itself could see demotion to high-priority along with potential restructuring of that importance ranking. I am currently on the fence about the inclusion of periods and Cenozoic epochs into top-importance, but I am leaning now much more strongly on leaving them as high-importance. Gasmasque (talk) 17:06, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I guess I should also point out that fossilization is a redirect to fossil, so wouldn't apply here. Some of these, like Ice Age, phylogenetics, sedimentary rock, and evolution are not currently listed as of interest to WP:Paleo at all, which whether they are top-importance or not goes to show how little these ratings are actually used. Gasmasque (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Clarification on "ice age" is also necessary; are we saying the concept of an ice age should be top-importance, or are we thinking of the concept covered by the page Quaternary Glaciation (that is to say "the ice age")? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:34, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I can see the argument behind Pterodactylus, but I think if one were to include it you'd have to include Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus too, and so on from there. I think mammoths, Tyrannosaurus, Archaeopteryx and the dodo are a rather agreeable collection of the most significant taxa to the history of palaeontology and trying to expand it from there is going to be a very slippery slope. Not to say I think pterosaur doesn't face the exact same problem; trilobite, ammonite, and dinosaur are easy to see as the most famous examples of palaeontological clades but if you try to put pterosaurs in that club you have other secondarily famous groups that would want a say about it. So I don't think any pterosaur representation is wise for Top rating, and while I'm here I would also oppose the various periods being included. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:26, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I think its worth including Australopithecus in top importance, but I generally agree that we shouldn't have very many genera/species in this tier. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:33, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I would argue that Australopithecus is not as important as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, if believe human evolution is worth covering here. My reservation is that palaeoanthropology is more of its own subfield rather than something of great interest to the subject of palaeontology as a whole; but of course, the cultural relevance of the "cave man"/neanderthal to the concept of the prehistoric world is not to be discounted. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:36, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Perhaps we include the article on Paleoanthropology rather than any specific example. Human evolution is already included. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:36, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::I think Paleoanthropology should be there for sure, I hadn't even noticed it was missing. Any sub-field of paleo that isn't overly specific should be in top importance, and paleoanthropology is certainly at least as notable as paleopathology (which is included). A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:45, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::I have no issue with any of the articles you've suggested. I think its a little restrictive, but that's something that can be litigated later. This is a well-reasoned list and I don't think any of the articles are misplaced. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::The two that stand out to me are convergent evolution and transitional fossil; the former is obviously an important topic, but I'm not sure I buy it being of such importance to palaeontology specifically that it warrants "Top" rather than "High", and the latter is a very famous and foundational idea but I'm not sure it really holds up as a driving tenant of how we see palaeontology and fossilization today. I wouldn't say I oppose excluding it, but I at least wanted to play devil's advocate. Even the page struggles to say much about the concept beyond listing random examples. In terms of stuff to add, I really do think Permian–Triassic extinction event and Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event belong here. I understand the reluctance to highlight the "famous" extinction events over the others, but I think these represent some of the most fundamental events in the history of life and earth that frame much of how we view the entire concept of the history of life. To say nothing of the cultural argument for the extinction of the dinosaurs being a top-level palaeo topic. In particular, the fact we include Cambrian Explosion on this list seems to give precedent; it, as well, is not a fundamental building block of palaeontology but it is the third pillar of the major events in the history of biodiversity that provide the framework for our three Phanerozoic periods. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:48, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree with adding both the extinctions you've suggested, and I don't think there's any issues arising from including them to the exclusion of others. They're clearly more important, at least in my opinion. The scale of the former and the recency of the latter make them obvious stand-outs among even other comparably-massive extinction events. Regarding convergent evolution, I think its broad applicability to discussions of paleobiology and evolution makes it important to include. It is important for understanding phylogenetics and homology, which are core concepts to our modern theory of evolution. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:12, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm still very strongly in the camp that all of the "big five" mass extinctions should be prioritized equally. I believe all are currently high-importance, all are level 4 vital articles, but of the bunch only the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction is a featured article. I think an initiative like this would be better put towards bringing the four others up to ga or fa (I believe someone recently tried with the T-J extinction), so I think an argument could be made for all five being top importance. For the same reason I don't think specific periods or epochs should be prioritized over others due to pop-culture significance, I think all five extinctions should either be high or top, and none should be considered higher priority than others. Gasmasque (talk) 14:14, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I don't think it's pop culture bias to admit that they weren't all made with perfect equal importance. I mean, it's literally built into the fact that two of them serve as the boundaries of new eras and three of them don't. Why is the semi-arbitrary classification of them as a "big five" taking priority over evaluating them individually? When I look at the facts, The Great Dying and the K-Pg count as Top importance. If the other three do on their own merits, I would like to hear the argument. All of that said, I do not think cultural factors should be so simply discarded. The K-Pg has influenced the way humanity perceives the concept of extinction and prehistoric life on the most fundamental possible level, in an entirely unique way. That, to me, is top importance in palaeontology. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:27, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::The P-T and K-T also are the two that are unambiguously agreed to have been true extinction events. The T-J extinction has not gone completely unquestioned in its time, I don't know enough about the Ordovician, but I believe the Cambrian extinction, like the explosion, has also been suggested to have been gradual and sample-biased. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:31, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::I am personally more in the camp of all of the above mentioned mass extinctions being "just" high-importance. While you're absolutely right that the P-T and K-Pg mark the ends of eras and not just periods, I feel like the fact that the eras themselves are already being considered top-importance makes this distinction less meaningful. These extinction events can be considered subtopics of their respective eras, and while they are important subjects I don't know if the event that ended the Mesozoic is equally significant to the entire topic of the Mesozoic itself, especially since it would be summarized and covered in some amount of detail on the Mesozoic page. The same goes for Permian-Triassic extinction in my mind; even considering that the Permian period is probably most widely cited and referenced for its end, I don't think it is fair to say that this applies to the entire Paleozoic era. I also think that if considering pop-culture factors (something I don't really like doing) then the Anthropocene/Holocene extinction and the K-Pg extinction are the only two that have a standing, since the P-T is relegated to geology/paleontology scicomm or educational works and has no meaningful pop culture impact. Mr. Freeze doesn't ask what killed the rugosan corals, after all. Gasmasque (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::I think the term "'pop' culture" is doing disservice to the significance of the K-Pg. That's a term we like to throw around for things like popularity from movies or documentaries, but the cultural footprint of the K-Pg is much more rich and meaningful. Again, it has had an enormous impact on the very way we as a species perceive the idea of extinction and change over geologic time. I don't think we should bow to pop culture, but I think to pretend that cultural significance does not exist at all is to blind ourselves to an aspect of the topic. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 17:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::::While I agree that all five of the Big 5 should be GA or FA (extinction events in general should get better articles), I don't think they all qualify for top importance. I mostly agree with what Lass said above. If we extend the logic of including eras but not periods in top importance, these two stand out as the ends to two of those eras, which itself is top importance. I would argue that Late Pleistocene extinctions (or a similar article) should be top importance for the same reason. Even though it wasn't the "end" of the Cenozoic, it is how most people conceive of the "end" of prehistory. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 22:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

As a heads up there is a discussion that just started (continuing from revision comments) at Talk:Harpacochampsa which needs more eyes and opinions as the ramifications of the outcome effect ALL pages with an etymology section.--Kevmin § 21:09, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:See also Talk:Chinatichampsus and numerous revisions to etymology sections of living organisms.--Kevmin § 21:16, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::Left some replies here. Thanks for letting us know. The Morrison Man (talk) 22:43, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:I ran into the same issue when writing the etymology of Dracopristis, where I originally intended to add a dedicated section (backed up by Greek dictionaries) to argue that the authors had very clearly mistranslated the name of their own animal. That was probably original research on my part, so I ended up just leaving the etymological clarifications as a note at the bottom of the page which seems to have not ruffled any feathers, and that's probably the best course of action with these taxa, too. That situation is slightly different, though, as I was actually able to find a secondary source explicitly clarifying the confused etymology of Dracopristis (John Long's Secret History of Sharks, in that case) and its entirely possible that no such source exists for these taxa or improper use of champsos/champsus. Gasmasque (talk) 23:05, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Late Devonian extinction#Requested move 5 April 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. PrimalMustelid (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

For those interested, I've opened a discussion about writing a dedicated article for "prosauropods" at WT:DINO here. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 02:06, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I've started a discussion on WP:TOL, and I thought it would be appropriate to cross post here since it is relevant to this project. The question is about how best to organize ranked family and order level fossil fish taxa, since many have quite limited information on them, may better be merged into higher taxa, and in many cases are already redirected. I intend to expand these articles (family and/or order) myself in whatever way is the most convenient for other wiki users, this isn't a workload I intend to force on anyone else as a kind of standard. I appreciate any feedback. Gasmasque (talk) 20:12, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Working on things for the Paleontology article I've noticed that our wikiproject seems to have some inconsistencies with "branding"-type things, like images and colours. The project header and wikiproject templates like the sidebar for example use a specific shade of brown-green that looks a bit odd when used in something like a navbox template. The templates for some articles like Template:Paleontology use a different shade. I can't find a specific reason for either choice, they both have used those colours for their entire time. I was wondering it we as a project wanted to create some consistent colours or images to use in things like templates or naxboves like the use of the geological time scale colours in all templates creating a timeline (except weirdly the Template:Life timeline). Recently the images for stub templates were revised, but I don't believe any changes to colours were made. If we wanted to reference some official source like the geological timeline for colours to use, that should probably be mentioned somewhere, or even if we wanted to use one specific shade of brown from somewhere to represent "paleontology" in all the templates the way Template:Botany uses green. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:48, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:I think the shade of light brown used in Template:Paleontology is quite nice and could stand to be used more widely. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:54, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

::It's hex colour is #e6d8ac, with a monochromatic variation such as #d4bc71 being usable if we want to have a bolder colour in some places. It might be worthwhile to see if there are justifiably similar colours we can cite to some authority, for example the official colours of [https://vertpaleo.org/ SVP] (if they have them) IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:15, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Be aware of MOS:COLOUR's guidance about contrast ratios when choosing a colour. Plantdrew (talk) 06:00, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::: Here are template and SVP colours for comparison:

:::* The Template:Paleontology colours are Background colour (#e6d8ac) border colour (#b9ad8a) IJReid's bolder variant (#d4bc71;)

:::* The SVP colours are Lightest: rgb(240, 225, 194) #f0e1c2 Light: #fcb900 Medium: #cf7119 Medium: rgb(207, 113, 25) Medium2: rgb(207, 112, 41); Dark: rgb(102, 51, 0) Dark: #630 Dark hover: #8E6941

::: The SVP use a mix of rgb, hex and short hex for the colours so I've just copied them as they are rather than converting them, apart from the lightest for comparison with the template colour, which is slightly darker.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I do like the look of the SVP colours (plus they can be chosen more objectively) but more importantly I think they also fulfill the MOS guidelines more and have a broader range of options. The medium to dark colours have an acceptable contrast ratio against white, and the medium to lightest have an acceptable contrast ratio against black, both as backgrounds and text colour. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 15:29, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::As a sort of text using the SVP colours, I redid Template:Paleontology with the Lightest as the background to black text, the Light as background to link text (the blue is too dark when recently visited but light when not visited for most colours), and the Medium as the border. Thoughts? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:37, 14 April 2025 (UTC)