Talk:Thagomizer

message: Why is there a link to the Horrendous Space Kablooie?
:It's another term that was first used in a comic strip (in this case, Calvin & Hobbes) and was subsequently adopted into the scientific lexicon. It appears that the use of the HSK is somewhat less widespread, however. AEW 16:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the link to HSK? 

message: I think that sums it up...
: read the BP page; it's another term that started on a comedy program and was adopted by scientists working in the field. Uucp 15:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not finding a reference to baboon flanges or baboon phlanges on the baboon page or in the revision history...Lost in editing? Morfusmax (talk) 20:05, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the link to Baboon Phlanges? 

message: First, I'm not seeing how it displays a slide projector. I'm just seeing a drawing (blueberries on bearskin?) on a stand, no indication of any projector. Second, Larson didn't insult our intelligence by explaining the cartoon, must we? Let's get rid of those two sentences! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Middlenamefrank (talk • contribs) 
:Done. I think it falls under WP:OR, anyway. Feezo (Talk) 07:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They need that sense of humor, in order to cope with Creationists, George Bush, and the like. Wahkeenah 03:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I resemble the remark that "even they" have a sense of humor.  Middlenamefrank (talk) 20:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

text:  Well EYE wouldn't delete it, I didn't delete it the first time, just asked the question here on this page. But I quote from the article:  '...in which a group of cavemen in a lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes were named in honor of "the late Thag Simmons".' How much more explanation could anybody capable of browsing Wikipedia need?? Let's give the reader SOME credit! Personally I loved the cartoon when I first saw it, but to find out years later that the paleontological community has embraced it to the point of adopting the term....well it has me in giggles whenever I think of it. Who says scientists are stuffy? This is one of my favorite entries. Middlenamefrank 05:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okay, let's get serious about the Larson cartoon 

message: Is there a date for when the cartoon came out? New Scientist says 1982, should this be in the article? - SimonLyall 08:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm assuming it's the year; here's another 1982. JDoorjam     JDiscourse 05:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the year, as noted in the picture's page when you click on it. The one book of Larson's that I have (The Pre-History of the Far Side) has the year posted in the upper left of each cartoon. Presumably the cartoon would have had a specific date, but the book I have doesn't show that. Wahkeenah 10:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of Cartoon? 

message: I don't know how proposed deltions work exactly, but consider this an objection. The article describes a genuine part of the anatomy of stegasaurs and is referenced. Its also been illustrated in Wikiworld (thanks for deleting the link, btw), and any attempt to deleted it should go to AFD for proper consultation. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 01:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: NB: One does not need to object to a  (proposed deletion); just remove the prod.  It signals "no, this is not an abandoned nonsense article, thank you very much"; any further opposition (which I'm not raising) would have to go to AfD (or SD if speedy deletion criteria applied, which they wouldn't here).  Just an FYI, in case you run into more prod's here and there.  Anyone can remove a prod and doing so in and of itself is an assertion that the article should not be auto-deleted, so it won't.  This is precisely why I used prod; if this were an article anyone cared about it would be un-proded immediately, which it was.  I.e., I was being more cautious than one might think at first glance. :-)  — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. I'd never come across a proposed deltion before, so I wasn't sure how it worked. No matter.Sabine's Sunbird  talk 08:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, the poster did not follow proper procedures. Alternatively, he could write the article he thinks should be there and then redirect this one to it... rather than trying to get somebody else to do that work for him. Wahkeenah 01:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying not to resent that insinuation.  I did in fact follow proper WP:PROD procedure - I ascertained that the article's current status (or existence) was not vandalism, and then added the tag (with description of the issue as I saw it), included an edit summary that warned I was prod'ing, and did not mark it a minor edit.  I then "considered" whether to go digging around in edit history to find someone to notify, and decided against it, which is a perfectly valid decision under proposed deletion policy.  NB: I'm not actually proposing deletion any longer, as discussed elsewhere, just addressing the accusation that I didn't follow WP policy in this action.
===WikiWorld link===
PS: The template ("thanks for the deleting the link, "btw") in question is up for TfD, and will probably be deleted, because it is an inappropriate WikiProject talk page heading template that indicates as a class (and in this case directly claimed) that the articles whose talk pages it was included on fall under the editing and review purview of the WikiProject in question, which is emphatically not the case.  It should be replaced with something more like the "this article was used as a news source" and "this article was referred to in a major media story" type of "news about this article" templates; I misremember their exact names, but several of them are at the top of Talk:Godwin's law for example.  The fact that such a template might be desirable/useful does not argue for continuing to misuse templates intended to serve entirely different purposes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I cherish my ignorance of template related matters on Wikipedia (and categories for that matter), but it doesn't seem unreasonable for articles or article talk pages illustrated in Wikiworld to have a link or mention somehow; I just wasn't impressed by the removal with any kind of replacement (many people probably don't read the signpost and I certainly didn't know the article I started had been illustated till I saw it on the page). I don't mind whats used to draw attention as long as something does. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 08:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done! See top of talk page now. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion 

message: PS: The template ("thanks for the deleting the link, "btw") in question is up for TfD, and will probably be deleted, because it is an inappropriate WikiProject talk page heading template that indicates as a class (and in this case directly claimed) that the articles whose talk pages it was included on fall under the editing and review purview of the WikiProject in question, which is emphatically not the case.  It should be replaced with something more like the "this article was used as a news source" and "this article was referred to in a major media story" type of "news about this article" templates; I misremember their exact names, but several of them are at the top of Talk:Godwin's law for example.  The fact that such a template might be desirable/useful does not argue for continuing to misuse templates intended to serve entirely different purposes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I cherish my ignorance of template related matters on Wikipedia (and categories for that matter), but it doesn't seem unreasonable for articles or article talk pages illustrated in Wikiworld to have a link or mention somehow; I just wasn't impressed by the removal with any kind of replacement (many people probably don't read the signpost and I certainly didn't know the article I started had been illustated till I saw it on the page). I don't mind whats used to draw attention as long as something does. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 08:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done! See top of talk page now. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WikiWorld link

message: This page is on my watchlist and it seems that every other day someone adds the line about "cavemen not having last name" and then someone removes it. Or visa versa. I don't really care one way or the other but could we possibly vote one way or the other? Its quickly becoming a candidate for a slow-burn lame edit war, which is sad. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 08:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly, we don't know if cavemen used surnames, and it's pretty clear that the intention of the joke is that Thag was indeed killed by the stegosaur. J. Spencer 15:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you do know. They certainly didn't use names like "Simmons". It's part of the joke. Wahkeenah 15:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: <sheepish>Well, yeah, Simmons. Certainly not modern surnames.</sheepish> I'm not going to fight about it, because I agree there's no need for it in this article, but cavemen could have known each other by multiple names; I'd guess either relational, like "Ogg, son of Grog", or occupational/skill, like "Gar Spearmaker". Anyway... J. Spencer 15:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Simmons" is a rather minor part of the joke. The upshot seems to be "we named the pointy end after the caveman who found out what it was used for. Fatally." Crud, the more I think about it, the less the cartoon hangs together in any sort of coherent, humor-producing way.  I'm just going to back out now... J. Spencer 16:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have hit upon the reason the article was once posted for possible deletion: It's too specific and narrow. This is a classic bit of Larson mixed-context: not just the unscientific mixing of cavemen and dinosaurs, also the various modern stuff, a la The Flintstones: the meeting room, what appears to be an overhead projection, talking in English, the surname Simmons, along with the stereotype "Thag" (which is just as unlikely as "Simmons"). The "lameness" is the article itself. More information about the cartoon, rather than POV-pushing about what the article is "about", might render it less "lame". Wahkeenah 16:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you've got a reference which backs the claim that cavemen didn't have last names, it can certainly go back into the article. Without a reference, it is either unverified or original research, and does not belong in the article. Looking at the history, it's been added back in by one user repeatedly. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, there are lots of references on what the names of cavemen were, as they kept meticulous records. Fine. You and your humorless colleagues win. Don't go griping the next time the article comes up for deletion. Wahkeenah 16:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's ask that one from GEICO. J. Spencer 17:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking for a moment as a palaeontologist, I think the point of this entry should be that scientists (a) enjoy cartoons and (b) sometimes use things dredged up from cartoons and apply them to science. Museums (especially US and British ones) have a predilication for trying to make science "accessible" by using terms that someone in Exhibits or Marketing thought were a good idea. (Someone at the NHM decided "Mesozoic Fossils" was too complicated and came up with "Middle Age Fossils", for example.) "Thagomizer" probably falls into that camp, and will likely never be used outside of exhibitions or books aimed at lay readers. In other words, agonising over whether or not cave men had surnames is a bit silly. Concentrate on the origins of the name and where it has been used. Don't waste time over explaining the joke (like all jokes, the more its analysed, the less funny it becomes...). Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 19:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The issue of last names (and other related silliness) 

message: In reinstating the cartoon, my explanation was too long for the edit summary, so I give it here:
In that email, Larson is sending a cease and desist letter to a website that displayed a Far Side cartoon every week for solely entertainment purposes. The Far Side cartoon in this article is different: it is a single cartoon, the purpose is educational, not entertainment, it is low-resolution, and it is crucial for a full understanding of the subject of this article. It does not infringe upon Larson's ability to earn revenue from his cartoons. Simply put, it meets the legal definition of fair use and our non-free content criteria. I am nearly 100% certain Larson was not thinking of applications such as this when he wrote that letter. -kotra (talk) 22:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair use of cartoon 

message: The recently described sauropod Spinophorosaurus is also thought to have had tail spikes. I'm not sure whether this technically should be called a thagomizer or not. -- 201.53.124.69 (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Spinophorosaurus]] 

message: An anon editor is again trying to reword the sentence "dinosaurs and humans did not exist in the same era". Given that it's the same wording, , , and now , and the pointed edit summary in that last edit, it's probably the same individual. I previously discussed it with that individual at User talk:Quiddity/Archive 10#Thagomizer. This is just a note, for future reference. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. That's what I thought, too. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dinosaurs and humans 

message: Perhaps scientific-terms-with-humorous-origins could turn into its own page.
It seems that nuclear physicists define "1 barn" to be 1x10e-24 cm-squared. It is the approximate area of the cross-section of a uranium nucleus, which was "as big as a barn" compared to some other nuclei they had worked with. It all goes back to the joke (wisecrack, really) that so-and-so has such bad aim (with a baseball, with a bow, with a gun, etc.) that he cannot hit the broad side of a barn. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_(unit).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marvin W. Hile (talk • contribs) 14:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A category would probably be the way to go for this idea. meshach (talk) 18:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific terms from jokes 

message: I know this will probably be an unpopular proposal, but this anatomical feature is only found in Stegosauria, so the short text here should simply be part of that article. Same with short articles about other anatomical features only found in specific groups of dinosaurs, such as Epoccipital and Rostral bone (should be merged into Ceratopsidae), and Predentary (should be merged into Ornithischia). FunkMonk (talk) 02:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Stegosauria is a significant enough topic that it isn't a problem to have separate supporting articles, like this one. There's no particular advantage to having a single monolithic article. (In fact, a potential pitfall is that if sub articles are merged into the main article, later well-meaning editors may decide the main article is too comprehensive and trim it. Losing content.) ApLundell (talk) 19:47, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with ApLundell. Especially as the Thagomizer has a pop-culture element separate from the main biology of a Steogauria.108.48.52.104 (talk) 20:27, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

text: I removed the  template since the discussion here has been stale for ~9 months and it was an incomplete merge proposal (as  was never added at Stegosauria). —RP88 (talk) 07:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  ;Well resolved! The remove proposal was presumably made in good faith, and while WP:NOT has, i'm pretty sure, a WP:NOTAJOKEBOOK section, WP:POKERFACE should and may already say that while humor should be sparse and avoid distracting from content that is primarily factual, the scholarly acceptance of thagomizer in place of the presumably lumbering descriptions of the anatomical structure is a significant fact about the nature of scientific inquiry, even if not one commonly singled out for attention. Oh, is everyone aware of the analogy between the benzene ring and the ferrous wheel? My high-school chem was rudimentary, but I picked it up in  first-year combined physics-chemistry, and passed it on to other computer-science teaching assistants, in grad school. JerzyA (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Stegosauria 

message: The humans came after the stegosaurids and that is clearly a picture of a stegosaurid, not an actual  stegosaurid. So, it is completely possible the comic is not inaccurate or anachronistic.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xnamkcor (talk • contribs) 17:40, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Humans and  Stegosaurids Co-Existing In Comic 

message: What use are vertical spikes on a tail that can mostly be swished side to side? Or did the dinosaur do a hand stand to bring the tail up over its body? Greglocock (talk) 23:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an interesting question, but one which I think is beyond the scope of this talk page. Also I'm not sure the answer is actually known. DS (talk) 00:17, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weapon