Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 1

message: Hi, I'm new to the group. Just thought I'd let you all know. I'll do my best with the dinosaurs, but someone may have to complete the taxoboxes for me, because although I can to the article, I'm not that good with species, phylum etc... Have a nice day...Spawn Man 00:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have made 4 new dinosaur articles: Roar! Chomp! Snort! & Slash!. Worked on others & will continue to do so! Bye... Spawn Man 02:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hi: 

message: . . . is a FAC! Banana04131 19:45, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Tyrannosaurus rex ]]

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

message: During the process of creating stubs I've noted that my entries tend to be rather formulaic, which I think is a good thing for this encyclopedia, since one of the main critiques by the "establishment" is that we're lacking in article organization and basically need an editor to do that.
I propose this quite journalistic layout:
Title: Generic name
*First paragraph
:Who?: Species name (holotype)
:What?: Classification (anglicized terms)   
:When?: Time 
:Where?: Locality
:How?: Type of remains, dates of the finding and the description, and taphonomy
*Development
:What does the name mean?
:What characteristics differentiate this animal from others? How long, tall, heavy is it? What are the peculiarities: trophic relations, etc.?
:What is the importance of this find in our understanding of the pre-historic world?
I know most of the participants of this project have been following more or less the same guidelines as I present here. However I would think it very fruitful if we could decide on a standard article structure so the review of old articles could pass for more than just adding information: turning them into 'lawful' encyclopedia articles.
On other stuff...
I was perusing through the Cretaceous dinosaur list and found the damnedest thing:
*Masiakasaurus Masiakasaurus knopfleri
*Pyroraptor Pyroraptor olympius 
*Rajasaurus Rajasaurus narmadensis
Oh, and the articles started with species names should have the specific epithet culled, even Tyrannosaurus rex. As I said, "standartize we must".
:I agree. Individual species should not have their own articles. In fact, one of the projects (either tree of life or birds, which is a good model to follow) suggests that we only make entries for family-level taxa if all the sub-genera are stub quality or worse, and then bud off individual genera into their own articles as the info on the parent page is developed. So, if most ceratopsids, for example, don't have much in the way of an article yet, just make a page for Ceratopsidae with short blurbs on each genus and links to any that are already full blown articles, and work from there.Dinoguy2 20:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article layout and other musings

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

message: Since Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs is becoming a bit dormant of late, I've decided to get it reactivated. I've started putting the following templates all over the show, & I'd appreciate if someone would try putting them on too. Remember, they only go on Dinosaur orientated artcle's TALK pages. Not the articles themselves.
So, finally, while I work on the project with a designer, in order to get more people, thus more pages, I would appreciate if you didn't move or shift (or stuff up for that matter) any of the work I'll be doing, like adding templates, protocols to the project page, etc etc. I'm hoping to get it up to the standard of The military history project. So, tell your friends to join up, or spam unknowing people & continue to do great articles. I no time, we'll have an awesome, professional project page! Spawn Man 03:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  My Attempt: 

message: As per step three (on the dinosaur project talk page), I promised to ask a general consensus about any new improvements made. So, I'd like everyone to give comments on the new talk page banner:
What does everyone think of it? It's meant to be placed on the talk page of dinosaur related articles, so everytime you edit an article, placing this there would make our job easier. So a few questions I'd like everyone to answer:
1)Does everyone like the picture?
2)Is the wording adequate?
3)Any other queries/problems?
I'll let you know when a new improvement arises... Spawn Man 00:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like it. I think, as the main image on Dinosaur, the picture is ok. The only small issue in the wording is the inclusion of "other prehistoric life". Dinosauria alone is a massive, massive project, do we really need to bring pseudosuchia, synapsida, etc. into this? ;) Dinoguy2 00:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there is no other project for that kinda stuff, but I totally agree. It was only there to make the banner seem more sophisticated any way.... Spawn Man 00:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Improvement

message: As per step three (on the dinosaur project talk page), I promised to ask a general consensus about any new improvements made. So, I'd like everyone to give comments on the new talk page banner:
What does everyone think of it? It's meant to be placed on the user talk page or user page of members of the Dinosaur wikiproject, so placing this there would make our job easier. So a few questions I'd like everyone to answer:
1)Does everyone like the picture?
2)Is the wording adequate?
3)Any other queries/problems?
I'll let you know when a new improvement arises... Spawn Man 00:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me, and it's now on my talk page, although I wouldn't mind a better picture that clearly shows a dinosaur and not a dinosaurish orange blob. Do we have one of a Styracosaurus head? That would be sweet. Sheep81 10:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to send out a few pictures to your talks to see if you like any photos better.... Spawn Man 18:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Improvement 2

message: I know there are not many active participants and we still have a lot of work to do just to clean up the dinosaur taxa entries, but to cut down on red links, eventually we might want to take on other related things like:
*Dinosaur paleontologists
*Dinosaur-bearing formations
*Dinosaur-oriented museums?
I think the taxa entries should clearly be the #1 priority though. Sheep81 11:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, especially for the paleontologists, since there are a lot of unliked or redlinked authority names in the taxoboxes.Dinoguy2 16:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what dinosaur related means, anything related to dinosaurs. We actually have quite a lot of freedom on the subject, so we can actually do all the things mentioned aboved. If we had time, we could change the name of the project to "Prehistoric Life" & have an offshoot called "Dinosaur project". This might draw more attention to the projetc as it covers a wider range. Lets face it, altough most people love dinosaurs, most have no real idea about them & usually get their information solely from Jurassic Park. Real dinosaur knowledgables are hard to come by. Spawn Man 18:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Subprojects

message: Well, above are a few photos that could replace the exsisting template photo. Please feel free to suggest more photos on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs talk page. Spawn Man 19:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the rex skull. It is the most familiar dinosaur by far, and usually the one people think of first. Plus, I think it will show up better on the little tiny box since it takes up a larger portion of the picture. The current picture is great at normal size but when shrunk it is a bit hard to tell what it is. At least to me. Sheep81 16:54, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.... Spawn Man 22:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks great now! Again, in my opinion. Sheep81 02:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, looks much better.Dinoguy2 03:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New photos proposed for templates? 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

message: I've successfully created an open list of tasks on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs main page for those who would actually like to know what to do with their time on the project. Add tasks as you wish, not too long though! Add your name to tasks you wish to be part of & that's as complicated as it gets... Thanks, Spawn Man 23:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New tasks 

message: Are we including every name ever published in any sort of media? Cause a lot of the names on there were just published in newspapers or tossed around on the internet, and were never formally scientifically published (nomen nudum). It doesn't particularly matter to me, just wondering. Sheep81 01:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, it is important to have a list of all of them. If people are searching for a particular dinosaur, we want them to be able to find it, even if the status of the name isn't official. I've several books which only refer to dinosaurs by their discovery name, because the dinosaur hadn't yet been fully described in a scientific publication. We can always redirect the informal name to the scientific article (which is what I've been working on for a few days). The redirect function works well to send readers to the pertinent article. Several genera have never been fully published; we should list them on the LoD page, even though they have not been formally published, because even partial information is better than no information at all. We don't need a complete article for dinosaurs with duplicate names, but a redirect, from the name it was informally known as, to the main scientific article, is a good idea. Just my two cents. --Firsfron 03:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. Maybe we could have some sort of note on the LoD page for dinosaurs which are not officially named, or only italicize valid names. Alternatively, when an invalid name redirects to another page, perhaps there should be some sort of mention on that page as to why it redirected there. Just tossing ideas around. This is all going to be a lot of work! Sheep81 03:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree on all of those suggestions (and had already considered a few of them)--I think they are good ideas. The problem is implementing all of them. Our hands are full as it is. The italicization is pretty important, but I was hoping we could get some sort of bot to do it. It's just too much to add italics to 1,000 articles. On redirecting: of course there should be a mention of why the reader was redirected. However, I feel this is a down-the-road project. Right now, we have no idea how many pages will redirect to Apatosaurus, for example. So until we've got all the redirecting done, it makes more sense to add a note saying 'Apatosaurus was also known as ...' at the end, so they all can be included at the same time, instead of many edits to each article. Again, just my two cents.--Firsfron 04:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed in all respects. Consensus gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. :) Sheep81 21:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List of dinosaurs standards

message: Well, actually, that's all a lie to get your attention to: The Big New Section On The Project Page!!!!!!. Yes, you may have noticed above the tasks section the section named "The Big 20". The new section is there to provide you with the main dinosaurs that we should be focussing on to get to the main page! After one of the articles is featured, I will remove it & add a new one to the list. It may take a while, but with all our help, it should be a breeze! They're all pretty well known, so finding info on them shouldn't take too long to find. Basically, go to town on the twenty dinosaurs until they're awesome. Contact me if you need anything else. Spawn Man 09:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Big 20 is a really good idea, as it helps to focus our efforts, and I know that you are only trying to move the project forward, but I think statements like "Everyone's waking hours on the project should be spent worrying about how this task, the main task, is going" do something of a disservice to the other tasks that we have ongoing. I agree that the Big 20 should be our Main Task, but let's not allow it to completely overshadow everything else. A little moderation would be good. Soo 11:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was only an overemphasis on the idea, not to be taken to heart at all..... However, as I pointed out, how can the project be taken seriously if none of the main articles are up to even good status? Spawn Man 03:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I will not rest, I will not stop, I will not eat anything but my keyboard