Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 3

message: It looks like the pages for Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan are sort of a mess with respect to each other. I suggest (see also Conway's message on the Brachiosaurus talk page) that we ditch the Giraffatitan page, make it redirect to Brachiosaurus, and discuss the situation in a section of the Brachiosaurus page. Either way, I think we need to standardize the use of B. vs G. brancai. Dinoguy2 18:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am in agreement as regards ditching Giraffatitan and standardizing B. vs G. brancai, for what it's worth.--Nar'eth 21:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Fine by me. Many authorities list them seperately, and just as many list them as the same genus. It's a judgement call.--Firsfron 01:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, but if it is a species then it should be listed on the Brachiosaurus page, just like the other species of Brachiosaurus. Only if it is a seperate genus does it need its own page.--Firsfron 02:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe as a comprimise, we could include B. brancai on the main Brachiosaurus page, mention the Giraffatitan situation briefly in the section discussing individual species, and also keep the Giraffatitan page as a non-taxobox entry for further explaination? Something similar to the current setup for Brontosaurus. Though, come to think of it, this might be going a bit far considering the severe-stub status of the Giraffatitan "article" as it is. We would really lose nothing by making Giraffatitan a redirect, and then if somebody wanted to write more on it at a later date, they could junk the reidrect code and start over (in other words, bud it off like you would for any article).Dinoguy2 02:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Honestly, the two genera are usually found to be sister taxa so it is pretty irrelevent which genus is used. Basically it comes down to whether you are a "lumper" or a "splitter". The same is true of actual giraffes, for that matter! So I am ambivalent as long as it is done in a way that makes sense. Sheep81 07:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Nope, genus only. See Criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs.Dinoguy2 13:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I see that the tyrannosaurs have their own page is that a mistake?--Technosphere83 14:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not unless a specific tyrannosaur species has its own page. Family pages (like Tyrannosauridae), genus pages (like Tyrannosaurus) are ok, but species pages (like Tyrannosaurus rex) are not, unless the genus name is taken.Dinoguy2 14:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a matter of consensus. More workers currently consider the tyrannosaurid genera Tarbosaurus and Daspletosaurus to be taxonomically valid (that is, not synonyms of Tyrannosaurus) than currently consider Giraffatitan to be distinct, on a genus level, from Brachiosaurus. Sauropods aren't really my specialty, so I'm speaking more to the rationale at work here than to the validity of (or lack thereof) Giraffatitan.--Nar'eth 23:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, now that I think about it, we need a consensus here on the validity of Tarbosaurus and Daspletosaurus. My feeling has always been that they're distinct from Tyrannosaurus, but I admit to being something of a splitter. At the moment, I'm using the 2nd ed. of The Dinosauria (2004) as my taxonomic standard. Holtz recognizes four genera of tyranosaurines: Daspletosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Nanotyrannus. I consider Holtz no slouch with theropods. Hence, I vote (getting further off-topic) that Daspletosaurus and Tarbosaurus not be listed on the Tyrannosaurus page as species or as subgenera, but that their respective genera pages be maintained. --Nar'eth 23:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LumpingDasplatosaurus torosus and Tarbosaurus bataar as species of Tyrannosaurus would be a mistake at this time. There are several different studies that find that they are not even sister taxa, let alone the same genus. Keep the individual pages and just note that such-and-such scientist considers them to be congeneric with Tyrannosaurus. I feel the same way about Giraffatitan and Brachiosaurus, although far less strongly. Sheep81 00:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Holtz is the leading tyrannosaur guy--I agree we use his genera here. In my experience, only a few workers lump Tarbosaurus, and even fewer lump Daspletosaurus. Maybe a quick mention on Tyrannosaurus species section that these are occasionally included in Tyrannosaurus, but remove them from the species lists. (I'd also forgotton about the discovery of the North American brachiosaur skull, which seems to lend a lot of wight to Giraffatitan as a seperate genus, I think). While we're on lumping/splitting, I think other sources of recent contention should stay split, like Suchomimus and Baryonyx. I'm on the fence about leaving Cryptovolans as a separate page though.Dinoguy2 00:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Giraffatitan 

message: Has anyone seen this species before, its new to me. As I cant find any reference to it as of yet.
BBC Enlil Ninlil 01:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, kind of old news as it came out weeks ago... I dunno why the news media is just picking it up now. Anyway it is a new carcharodontosaur. Here is the paper... fourth one down the list. You can download the PDF for free. Also notice that right below it is the Antarctopelta paper. Sheep81 02:08, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mapusaurus roseae

message: This user has been making some questionable edits to the WP dinosaur articles. Although Dinoguy left several vandalism warnings on 12456's talk page, these were good-faith edits that just weren't accurate: it's not actually vandalism, although it is upsetting to see good articles junked up. I've left a friendly note on 12456's page that explains why many of his edits were deleted. I have seen that Dinoguy has tried to fix a lot of the edits, and I've gone through part of the list myself, but there may have been things that haven't been caught yet. The full list of edits can be found  here. 
There's also a new template that needs to be deleted (because it is neither scientifically named nor useful in any way), and I'm in the process of nominating it for deletion. Please support the nomination. The template can be found here.--Firsfron 01:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I cooled it with the vandalism warnings for a bit, but he either doesn't read his talk page, doean't care, or doesn't understand. I'm beginning to think it's the third, but if this is the case should he really be editing Wikipedia?Dinoguy2 03:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Point taken. A look at his extremely long (83 characters long) signature and ghastly animated gif-filled user page makes me wonder if this isn't a junior high school student.--Firsfron 03:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And now I've discovered at least some of his edits were copied and pasted from Yahoo.--Firsfron 21:00, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there no way to ban this user? He probably means well but is really fouling everything up. I had to completely re-write his recent Streptospondylus article because it did not contain one word of correct information. It seems like all the information in it was inferred based on the similarity of the name to Massospondylus, unless I'm missing something.Dinoguy2 23:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP's banning policy can be found at Wikipedia:Banning_policy. I agree that it's difficult to be constantly monitoring this user's contributions. What you describe happening at Streptospondylus presumably also occurred at Riojasuchus (for Riojasaurus).--Firsfron 23:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've had enough. We can't keep fixing every article like this. I changed every word in Libycosaurus except the name itself.--Firsfron 03:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same here, and in fact he's hurting this wikiproject. Filling the redlink taxa with completely made-up information, then having me come along and do a half-assed damage control job on that article, makes it less likely that a serious contributor will fill the same red link with substantial and well-researched information (i'm too fed up to even be bothered making taxoboxes for these things, my latest cleanups have just been one or two liners. i'd not even bother if I didn't hate the idea of blatent falshoods in Wikipedia). I checked up on Wikipedia:Blocking policy, and I think the section "Users who exhaust the community's patience" applies to this situation. If it looks like we have community support (please reply here), I think we should have Elmo blocked.Dinoguy2 23:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Although I haven't been around for a while, I feel I should have a part in what goes on. I don't think we should take banning someone too lightly. Although what he is doing is extremely disruptive to the project & to its members, I doubt his mistakes are created maliciously (or however you spell that word!). He seems to be young, inexperienced & from his writing skills, English may probably be his second language. If this is so, the messages fristfron etc have left on his talk seem very technical, especially the last one. Although his user page may look like the word of some asylum escapee, I think we should allow him some more time to correct his mistakes. Judging on his last few edits, it seems as though he may be trying really hard to fit in. He may also be pasting his information from misinformed sites, leading to him looking like he's putting in wrong information. I think he needs at least a two clearly written, easily understandable reminders of what he's doing wrong & what he should be doing instead. Using basic psycology (or however you spell it), it is easy to see from his user page that he wants attention, but can't express it in a normal way. He's probably enjoying the attention he's recieving from misbehaving, as the unstable wheel always gets the most attention. If we show him attention without him being problematic, then maybe it will show him that being good will still get him attention. Sorry for going on too long, but I think there are other ways to resolve the problem before lynching him too early. Agreed, in the future, banning may become an option, but for now it should be questioned. Spawn Man 23:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm really starting to get the feeling that he's simply making up information or trying to infer information based on the name. I recently re-wrote an article on a prosauropod which he had written was a 2ft long carnivorous relative of Microraptor. The fact that microraptorians are rare and have only been known for a few years makes it seem very unlikely that any site could confuse something like this. He also wrote an article on Streptospondylous as a prosauropod, probably because he figured Streptospondylous sounded like Massospondylous. I had your attitude for a while, but he is just not getting it, no matter how many re-writes or messages he recieves. As I said before, if "He seems to be young, inexperienced & from his writing skills, English may probably be his second language", than he really is not qualified to be working on the english Wikipedia.Dinoguy2 23:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Whatever happened to the ol', "G'day Spawny, we're glad to have you back mate. You're a real gem. A real gem..." I guess those days are over.... Spawn Man 01:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Elmo12456]]

message: Is Otogosaurus actually the name of a specific dinosaur, or is it a family of dinosaurs? In my research, I keep on encountering a specific species of Otogosaurus... --HappyCamper 03:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I see, Otogosaurus is a genus of dinosaur, just like the rest. There may be only one species within the genus: that's quite common for many dinosaurs. This page gives a good source for a taxobox and This page lists the basic details. Does that help?--Firsfron 03:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose...hm...Thanks :-) --HappyCamper 23:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion 

message: Since the English Wikipedia was removed from the main cluster on April 11/12th, all the tools developed to aid editors in editing articles no longer work. By far the most useful of these was CatScan, which was a multifunctional tool. I used it regularly to:
* check the size (in kb) of various dinosaur articles.
* verify that all the categories had been added to each dinosaur article.
It worked perfectly for both of these otherwise tedious functions. Hours of work took only minutes. The toolserver has been offline for nearly a month now, and there's almost no report of any progress made in restoring it. There's a petition to try to get The Powers That Be to get moving and restore the toolserver here. Please take a moment to sign the petition, if possible. Thanks in advance.--Firsfron 12:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright. Will do it right away! Thanks for letting us know.. Jayant,17 Years, India • contribs 10:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I signed it in Germanglish. Sheep81 18:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw the signatures, and I appreciate them. Thank you, folks. BTW, my Germanglish is about as good as yours, Sheep! :) --Firsfron 21:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WP Tools

message: This page was about twice as long as the recommended size (32KB), so I archived about 42KB worth of stuff. We sure do talk a lot! If anyone would rather keep something on the active talk page, go ahead and move it back out of the archive. Thanks! Sheep81 02:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New archive

message: I was looking for some some input/ideas for making a userbox for WikiProject Dinosaurs. A userbox would help spread the word of the Dino Project. Just an idea. Mr. Turcotte 21:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Already have one, actually. Dinoguy2 00:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see. Would anyone mind if I made another userbox? Mr. Turcotte 17:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't see how it could hurt. Sheep81 19:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, Go ahead. I want another one! :-D Jayant,17 Years, India • contribs 07:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've edited the comment above so that this page isn't included in a cat category. Those cats would be easy prey for our dinosaurs.--Firsfron 21:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Hey Spawn, Dont mention it. And welcome back.! Jayant,17 Years, India • contribs 06:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's nearly identical, don't you think?--Firsfron 07:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, try putting up another picture if you find one. Jayant,17 Years, India • contribs 12:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I looked. Not really a huge selection to pick from. Mr. Turcottetalk 00:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what is the point of having two nearly identical userboxes? There's one extra word, and a slightly darker background. That's it.--Firsfron 01:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Userbox for the Dino Project 

message: I went ahead and just requested peer review for the Ankylosaurus article. It says to mention if you have worked on an article, so I did, but I tried to mention the whole Project as several other people had also contributed information which I incorporated into the recent major edit. Let's see where this leads, hey? The peer review link is here, and we should feel free to make suggestions ourselves of course. Sheep81 09:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ankylosaurus peer review

message: I was considering working on the Sphenosaurus article, when I noticed it's mixed up in the Paleosaurus mess. Gah! Suggestions? --Firsfron 01:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's mentioned in the 1847 section of the Palaeosaurus article already. Seems pretty straightforward to write the article using that post. If you need actual citations I can try to find them for you. Sheep81 22:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, I wrote the article. Kind of quick and dirty, but it's done. We're also down to just the last few dinosaurs now, both on the list of dinosaurs and the missing dinosaurs page. If anyone wants a final go, now would be the time (meaning anyone, not you specifically, Sheep).--Firsfron 16:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's about all it needed, I think. Nice job. Sheep81 14:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Appreciate the pointers.--Firsfron 15:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More ''Palaeosaurus'' fun

message: In my opinion, categories based on diet are pretty useless. There's usually only circumstantial evidence that a dinosaur ate this or that, and cats like this only serve to spread the (sometimes) false dichotomy between carnivore/herbivore. Where to put oviraptorosaurs? Ornithomimids? Even troodontids and ceratopsians have been suggested as omnivores, along with primitive ornithischians, prosauropods, etc. Most modern reptiles (and birds, for that matter), are omnivores, and very few are pure herbivores. So... delete it?Dinoguy2 18:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I kinda liked it, but you raise some good points. Naturally, if it's deleted, we'll have to remove it from the four or five pages to which Elmo added it...--Firsfron 18:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shoot, why not have Category:Bipedal dinosaurs, or Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear, or Category:Dinosaurs with more than 30 tail vertebrae? We can't have a category for everything. Some of our dinosaurs already have 5 legitimate categories as it is (see: Dracorex) I think our setup is fine right now. Sheep81 18:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean you don't like my new category, ((Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear)) ?! I'm so upset... --Firsfron 18:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sacrifices must be made for the good of the Project. If we create Category:Dinosaurs with fancy headgear, the terrorists have already won. Think of the children. Sheep81 19:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Carnivorous dinosaurs