User talk:Abyssal/Archive 5

Ampelosaurus feet

Hey Abyssal! The front feet in the image appear to have toes, claws, and splaying metacarpals. Basically, elephant foot syndrome which is very common among sauropod restorations. The 'hands' should be columnar, not sloping down from the wrist. Titanosaurs lacked clws on the forelimbs entirely (most sauropods lacked all claws except the thumb claw) and, in fact, titanosaurs did not even have any fingers. They walked on modified, metacarpal stumps.[1] Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Scoyenia

A tag has been placed on Scoyenia requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. DougsTech (talk) 05:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

March 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but you removed a speedy deletion tag from Scoyenia, a page you have created yourself. If you do not believe the page should be deleted, you can place a {{hangon}} tag on the page, under the existing speedy deletion tag (please do not remove the speedy deletion tag), and make your case on the page's talk page. Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. Thank you. DougsTech (talk) 05:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

ANI notice

You are being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User creating MANY one line pages. FYI. --64.85.220.189 (talk) 16:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello again, I'm the same user, different IP. I agree that instead of running off to ANI they should have talked to you first, so I am taking upon myself. I was wondering if I could convince you to add a little more context to the stubs before you create the article, maybe in a sandbox or something. I know you have expanded some already, but in some cases certain editors like more complete stubs (oxymoron) than others. What I used to do (when I actually edited here) with mammal taxon was create one really good wikified stub and then used that as a template to create a bunch of other article stubs quickly. If that is not how you roll, more power to you. Just thought I'd mention it. Also, there was concern about an article creator removing a CSD tag instead of using the {{hangon}} tag, so keep that in mind, too. I don't think any reasonable admin would have not declined the speedy, and even if they did you could ask for it to be undeleted, NBD. The whole thing is ridiculous, but anything you can do in your power to minimize the drahmaz is sometimes worth it. ;) --64.85.216.254 (talk) 16:16, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The good template thing is usually "how I roll" but I was in a hurry and it was 2 AM. I removed the tag because the reason it was put on there was that there was no context. After I added the context, there was no need for it to be there any more. Sorry that I broke a rule. Thanks for being helpful. Do you have an account? Abyssal (talk) 22:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Stubs 2

Hello, I see that you created paleo-mollusc-stub. I think, that there could be also paleo-gastropod-stub. (There are 202 fossil gastropod families!) Then there is no need to add two stubs paleo-mollusc-stub and gastropod-stub, but the only one. For gastropod stubs overview see Wikipedia:WikiProject Gastropods/Guidelines#Stub types.

paleo-mollusc-stub is also important but only for molluscs of uncertain position Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005)#Paleozoic molluscs of uncertain systematic position and for other smaller group of molluscs like fossil monoplacophorans, fossil polyplacophorans, and so on.

I think, that this is not much usefull to mix fossil bivalves with fossil cephalopods and with fossil gastropods.

There do not exist yet bivalve-stub and there can also be paleo-bivalve-stub.

There is also possible to make paleo-cephalopod-stub, but this is a matter of Wikipedia:WikiProject Cephalopods. I hope, that they will agree. --Snek01 (talk) 11:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

See also my question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology#Category_Extinct_gastropods. --Snek01 (talk) 11:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

But yes, there are many articles, that can be added to paleo-gastropod-stub category. That is why I was writing the message. For example look at Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). Probably every of the family with an dagger is a stub. And many many more other articles. Is the number of the stubs the only criterium for creating the stub template? --Snek01 (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There are hundreds of paleo-gastropod-stubs and there will be more of them in the future. There is no need delete paleo-mollusc-stub, there is enough articles for it too. --Snek01 (talk) 22:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

OK. It seems that we can start Template:Paleo-gastropod-stub. We can wait few (about 3?) days for other opinions about other possible stub types. I placed links to all 3 related wikiprojects. --Snek01 (talk) 22:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Species table

Sounds good to me, would be very handy for taxa with heaps of named species. Dinoguy2 (talk) 14:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Pagename

Hi just a heads up. Can you use {subst:PAGENAME} rather than pagename as it strains the server. It also once saved will paste in the title for your rather than leaving it pagename. Keep up the good work! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Great user name BTW I always picture some gigantic deep sea monster unknown to man whenever I see your cool user name!. You may be interested in speaking to User talk:Bugboy52.40. I recently helped him get something set up (which along with your own contributions is why we have jumped 5,000 articles overnight). He is using a script to aid him to generate articles at a much more rapid pace very much in the way you are starting them from mass missing lists. Perhaps you could ask him to help you with a script (my knowledge about actual scripting is pretty thin) to help you create similar articles at a much quicker pace? You could also ask User:Letsdrinktea. I think the more coordinated we all are the better. in my view there should be several bots running throughout the day together getting these missing article sonto here! KUTGW! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes unfortunately it looks at if he has vanished. Perhaps then you could ask Bugboy what he is using? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems as if Dr.Blofold likes to take the initiative, but I would elited to have someone to help me. That would sound like plan, but it was reject because on the basis of not actually being a bot, but it does mean more edits for us! Bugboy52.4 (talk) 14:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

sorry, these things have to be registered because people have to go through all the pages created, and I was told the script was a bot, but wound up not being one anyway, so if you are to create articles on mass scale, you have ask to be signed up with the Jvbot by . But anyway, I went through the articles you created, and it would work great for what you're doing, it can create 60 articles per minute, do you want me to give you the script. Bugboy52.4 (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and he got blocked, which I believe to be a misanderstanding, but I still see him around as IP user:96.255.93.122. Bugboy52.4 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, i am the user you are referring to. I was blocked due to a misunderstanding. If you want me unblocked please leave the admin who blocked me a message at User talk:Luna Santin. I would also be happy to provide you with the script 173.66.142.101 (talk) 20:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Synapsids

Thanks!!! I will insert more material soon. Great job with the lists, Congratulations. Burmeister (talk) 16:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I use:

• Battail, B. & Surkov, M. V. Mammal-like reptiles from Russia. In Benton, M. J.; Shishkin, M. A.; Unwin, D. M.; Kurochkin, E. N. The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 672 p.
• The Paleobiology database
• Mikko's Haaramo Phylogeny
• Carroll. 1988. Vertebrate paleontology and evolution.
• Trevor Eucynodonts

And some cientific papers. Burmeister (talk) 16:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I only use Battail & Surkov for now Burmeister (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I will put the refs, thanks again Burmeister (talk) 17:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much Abyssal for the Fauna Barnstar Burmeister (talk) 16:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, its a possibility. There are many genera yet to insert in the list, i believe more 200+ Burmeister (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, i dont saw yet a basal genus. I believe that the division in pelyco and Therap is a good start, the therapsid list will stay bigger than pelyco list, but we can make a stub in a subpage to see how they look like. Burmeister (talk) 01:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I did some changes, all that genera in incerta sedis are pelycosaurs, or was descript as pelycosaurs. I insert the images in list of pelycosaurs and i hope continue insert the time and locality in next days. Thnaks Burmeister (talk) 20:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Geophagy

I believe from looking back that you're the contributor who added the Henry & Kwong data to the geophagy article. The way it reads now seems to be promoting the idea that geophagy/clay eating is beneficial and should be promoted/maintained in North America. Not knowing enough about the issue myself, I thought I'd suggest you take another look at it to see if anything seems too pointed. I did see another NPOV query on the talk page as well, so despite the late hour I think I'm not alone :P - BalthCat (talk) 07:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Woodbury, New Jersey

Why was this edit made to Woodbury, New Jersey? It doesn't mention the city anywhere in the paragraph, nor is there any mention in the reference of its connection or importance to Woodbury. Was this accidentally put in the article? Jrcla2 19:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Stub creation rate

Good job with all those stubs! Just to warn you that any repetitive editing over about ~7 edits per minute is considered to fall under WP:Bot policy - which means you'd needed to request permission here. Anyhow, keep up the good work, just consider slowing it to ~7epm to give new page patrollers a chance! A bot flag might also be useful (it hides the stubs you create from Special:NewPages, for example. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Prehistoric Animal creation BOT

Hello,

As you may have guessed from the bot request conversation, I am willing to help you with this proposed project, but these mass creations are always a bit controversial. The best way to stave off controversy is to make sure each article is created with some real content more than just "X is Y" ... the template you provided is a pretty good start.

I was wondering what your planned source for this material is. A commercial database is OK as long as you don't take any text from it, as facts aren't copyrightable. I'd like to take a look at the source material and see if I can come up with some ideas of what material we can capture.

--ThaddeusB (talk) 14:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I use the online Sepkoski database. The only useful information it offers is the order, the generic name, and the time range of the subject. See here for an example that won't take all day to load. Abyssal (talk) 15:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I did some digging around and found Paleodb.org which might be of some additional use to us. For some genus it has info about known fossils, morphology, ecology , and species in the genus. For all entries it has who officially named the genus & who classified it properly (according to current knowledge anyway). Any other dbs you know of that might contain further info would be helpful (a bot can pull from as many as necessary at once).

I also see that like 90% of these are red linked, including many genus with living species. Given that, we are going to need to be careful about selecting a good template. I'll get back to you later today with more info about how to go about this. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry its been a few days since I last got back to you... I'll try to get an article template set up tonight. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

A first draft of the template can be found at User:ThaddeusB/PAC_template please modify as you see fit & comment inline. Thanks, ThaddeusB (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I can easily have the bot generate the see also list if there is a defined rule that applies to all cases - do you want it to just be any sister genus? Perhaps there are some generic articles that could be linked to based on specific classes (or other taxa)? I have made the other suggested tweaks. There is a line in the template about the organism's size, which would be based on any measurements found at paleodb. I don't actually know what kind of data would be in the "diagnosis" section, so feel free to inform me. :) Feel free to edit the template directly if think any other the other data at paleodb would be useful - even if they are only actually present for a few % of the entries. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we may have a slight understanding here. I was under the impression that you'd be putting together the human generated lists I mentioned, but perhaps you thought I was doing it. Oops :) I figured you'd do a better job than I could since I am not all that knowledgeable about the topic, but let me know if there are some things I need to do myself.

In regards to the other question, yes I can have the bot read from a pdf. In fact, it is preferable to read from a local file whenever possible to conserve resources. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will start writing some code to capture the info we need. Once that is up & running I will let you know what other information I need from you (if any). I am going to write it so that it captures all the info it can find & writes it locally - that way we can later tweak the template/human supplied info without having to recapture data from the web. When the time comes, the bot will use the local info to generate the stubs. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Was there a specific reason you asked if the bot could read from a PDF? If you have an additional source in mind, let me know. Thanks --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You're not being obnoxious at all and I could use the prodding. :) If all goes well the downloading of the necessary data should start within the next 2-3 days. Once that is done we just need to work about the formatting details & such... I will get back to you when I am ready to do that later this week. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

update

I have been very busy this week and so progress was slow. However, I am working on the project right now and hope to have some data for you tomorrow.

I also would like to warn you that it is probably going to be a difficult fight to get the bot approved. Content creation has always been a bit controversial and there currently is a major cleanup disaster created by a similar bot that might leave a bad taste in people's minds. (See: [2] & [3]). I have (hopefully) built a reputation for making reliable bots which should help, but i thought you should be prepared for the worst. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:15, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll figure out what I need from you tonight and get back to you tomorrow.

BTW, I just now saw you past couple messages for the first time. Since the thread isn't a the bottom of my talk page anymore, I apparently overlooked the changes. Sorry about that. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick not to let you know that I hope to finally have time tomorrow to organize the data I have and let you know what I need from you. --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

A bot is currently sorting through the data I have. There are over 30,000 genus indentified by Sepkoski that are currently considered valid. I didn't realize the extent of the information before and the analysis is progressing slower than expected. That said, rest assured the process is finally underway. :)

Now to answer your questions. First, thanks for moving the thread to the bottom of my (although I hadn't actually missed anything this time - just hadn't had a chance to reply in the necessary detail :)) Your suggestions to combat doubt are good. My main concerns aren't with BAG members, who understand that the anybot situation was mostly caused by bad actions on Martin's part, but rather with the community as a whole which is generally skeptical of this sort of thing to begin with.

Here is what I think we should do. What the source code available to people knowledge in code (BAG) and the database available to people knowledgeable in classification (appropriate WikiProjects). This way it can be insured that the bot won't generate any novel errors and the data can be spot checked for integrity (obviously there is no way to check all 30K entries). In the BRFA I will highlight why this bot won't suffer from the same issues as anybot did, and possibly point out the care with which I have addressed previous bot requests.

It will be technically possible to use the same database to fill in lists, as you suggest. Whether this should be our first priority or second I don't know.

You can go ahead and send me that PDF file you have at any time: gtb38@yahoo.com - not personally knowing the data, I can't say for sure when it will come in handy, but I'll go ahead and take a look and see what I can integrate into the database I am building.

To prepare for the time when the database is ready to go, you can start working on common name synonyms for classes that have a lot of Sepkoski genus in them. Additional, any text describing the generally characteristics on the class that you deem appropriate would be helpful. Examples, would be ANTHOZOA, ARTICULATA, BIVALVIA, CEPHALOPODA, CRINOIDEA, etc. In the a class doesn't have a common name, put "none". Eventually, we'll need this type of info for all classes we are going to import, as well as some of the more common orders, which I will specific when I have more accurate info to give you. I would like the data formatted in a plain text file as follows (one line per entry):

• cephalopoda(tab)cephalopod(tab)The cephalopods are a class of mollusks characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a modification of the mollusk foot into the form of arms or tentacles.
• Scientific name of Taxon(tab)Common name(tab)General description
• ...
• ...

I also need a lost of "see also" articles and the highest taxon/taxa to which they apply. For example List of nautiloids works for all genus in Nautiloidea. These would then be added to any sister genus identified by paleodb to create to see also section.

I figured out I can probably pull an appropriate category from a higher level taxon's article. I might be able to pull stub tags in a similar way. I'll see how that goes and let you know. Not sure about portals - we can figure that one out when it gets closer.

I think that is everything for now, ThaddeusB (talk) 20:23, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The list is more-or-less what I was looking for. Just one minor detail needs corrected - the additional text starts with a sentence fragment, rather than an actually sentence. If you could start each one with XXX is/was/are/were that would be helpful since the bot will be dropping that text into each article after "YYY was a prehistorical genus of (common name)." Thus for example:

Haplacanthus is an extinct prehistoric genus of acanthodian. The acanthodian were a class of paleozoic fishes, sharing features with both bony fish and cartilaginous fish...

--ThaddeusB (talk) 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Take your time, there is no rush. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Just found your list in my "spam" folder, which is pretty strange (wonder what triggered that:.) In any case, I notice that three entries are blank - IRREGULARES, ORTHOTHECIMORPHA, REGULARES. I am assuming that irregulares/regulares aren't "real" classes but rather holding areas for organisms that haven't been properly classified yet? What about orthothecimorpha?

Eventually, we'll need descriptions for the "unpopular" classes as well, but that can wait until I have more precise data on what we'll need. The next thing that would be helpful is a list of Wikipedia lists that are good "see also" candidates and a list of the taxa they apply to. For example,

List of nautiloids(tab)Nautiloidea
List of creatures(tab)taxon1, taxon2
....

Just include the highest taxon from which no animals would be excluded by the list. That is: most lists probably directly relate to one specific taxon and thus that one should be used. If it covers say 2 orders of a particular class, but not the other orders in the same class list both. (I hope that makes sense).

If there are some general articles (but not ones for specific taxa) that you feel would be useful "see alsos" for all entries in a specific class/subclass/order go ahead and include those as well. I am also open to article topics like "fossils in XXX" or "organism of the XXX period", but obviously those type articles (if they even exist) would have to be listed separately since they can't be organized by taxa. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice work on the "list of lists" file. I'll compile a list of other information we need and get it to you by Monday. We should be able to file the bot request by mid-week, I think. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Working on this list of info we still need right now; I will get it to you ASAP. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we are sill using the template, so go ahead and put together info on the time periods. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely no pressure from me. Wikipedia has no deadline and I've caused far more delays than you have. :) As to whether we do the tables or article first, I have no preference so if you want the bot to do the tables first that is fine. Just give me a list of the tables that need filled in & I'll get to work on the code. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I got the list of lists. I will try to get the code to fill the lists written this weekend. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you know its been a very busy week for me but that I hope to get the code completed and tested tonight. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to get back to you about what we still need for the article creation phase, but I have question about the lists phase: For the "age" column did you want the name of the time period(s) or the date range? --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at List of prehistoric starfish#The list. I filled in the first entry based on information captured by the bot. Is this what you had in mind? I guessed on the epoch since I didn't want to count them all out for a sample entry. Is there a list of all the epochs in order that I can refer to, or can you make one up?

Let me know if there are any changes that need to be made to the presentation of the data, and I will get started on having the bot go through and generate the information for the rest of the entries. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:53, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I think everything is ready to go (sorry been distracted the last few days), but the following entries pulled up nothing in Paelodb:

• gorgonocephalid
  • found in List of prehistoric brittle stars & List of prehistoric echinoderms
• Mikrocidarió
  • found in List of prehistoric echinoids & List of prehistoric echinoderms
• Hemieurylae
  • found in List of prehistoric brittle stars & List of prehistoric echinoderms
• Megantocrinus
  • corrected to Meganotocrinus
• Priscanermarinus
  • corrected to Priscansermarinus
• Diceratograptusv
  • corrected to Diceratograptus
• asterometrid
  • corrected to asterometridae, but not in paleodb
• squillid
  • corrected to squillidae, but not in paleodb

Can you make sure they are spelled correctly? I'll send you a copy of the database for review early tomorrow. --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know which version of gorgonocephalid is what was intended in the lists, but perhaps you can figure it out. If Mikrocidarió & Hemieurylae aren't real (appears to be the case) they should probably be removed from their respective pages. Megantocrinus & Priscanermarinus appear to have originated from a typo in an older version of paleodb (now corrected), so I corrected on wiki as well. Diceratograptusv was a simple on wiki typo. I have corrected asterometrid & squillid on wiki, but neither is in paleodb (a large chunk of families aren't).

There are also several genus names that are used for one than one distinct genus (not sure why the scientists would do that, but they did). Not sure what we should do about those, but I'll make up a list here in a few moments.

The bot will just leave blank any line it doesn't know what to do with, so its not a major issue if we can't figure anything out. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

See User:ThaddeusB/Ambiguous Taxons --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

some work to do

I have created a list of all the geological time periods used by Sepkoski. (I had this info ready way back on Sunday, but was too busy in real life to wiki format it until today). If you could go through and make sure the wikilinks all point to the right place and then fill in the correct date information that would be a big help. The info is found at User:ThaddeusB/Geological_periods. You can edit the page directly; I have filled in the first two so that you can see what I am looking for. Thanks! --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I have created a list of scientists who named at least 1 taxon in the "list of xxx" tables, sorted by number of taxon named. If possible, see if any of them can be wikilinked. The list is at User:ThaddeusB/Scientists_list. I am also emailing you a csv copy of the database in case that helps. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question, things have been extremely busy off-wiki for me this week. I probably only need 1 more hour of work to get the bot up & running but finding that hour has been difficult this week. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Finishing this up is my top priority for tomorrow (Sunday). --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you know I was barely online at all Sunday or Monday (spending time with family), but that this remains my top priority (other than routine answering talk messages, keeping up with watch list, etc). --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I finally got to finishing up the code today. When I went to run it, I found a few periods in Sepkoski's DB that weren't in the key. I was able to figure out every one except "Wc" which is a mystery - all I know is it is in the Permian. Let me know if you have a clue, otherwise I'll just have to skip it. In any case, there are about a dozen periods that need date ranges now; User:ThaddeusB/Geological_periods.

I'm heading to bed here a few minutes, but I'll file the BRFA as soon as I can rerun my test with the missing info. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"W-C" in the Permian is the Wuchiapingian-Changhsingian boundary, although it's not usually abbreviated "Wc." The Wuchiapingian is Wuc, I think, without checking references. There are plenty of good on-line sources for checking this, though.

Your ages are not in accordance with International Commission on Stratigraphy. What are you using? I only checked three real quick, because one I noted was wrong.

--68.127.233.138 (talk) 14:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Sepokoski's data uses "Wc" for some period, so it is most likely Wuchiapingian. And no, I couldn't find anything online to tell me what all of his abbreviations meant - all such tables seem to be incomplete. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:11, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Which ones were off? I checked a bunch at random against the ICS's chart and only one was off, and it was only by one, and for a stage whose boundries are not yet ratified officially. The list does ignore or round the given decimals, but that's because the decimals aren't helpful for the fossil range template, and since the numbers will not be seen by readers precision is not required. Abyssal (talk) 16:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)"

What are you using ages for? If they aren't used for anything, why have them? --68.127.233.138 (talk) 18:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

They are going to used for a hidden sort function initially, and later to estimate the age of prehistoric creatures that no precise data is available for, but for which Sepkoski made a period based estimate. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:11, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I was waiting for you to add the dates for the new entries of User:ThaddeusB/Geological periods. Sorry if that wasn't clear before. It probably only will take 5 minutes, but I'm not entirely sure where to find the data myself. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:47, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

BRFA

Yes, I saw your message. I plan on filing the BRFA today. Will give you a heads up when that happens. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:26, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

BRFA filed --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The stub creation will be filed as a separate task after the initial one is completed successfully. That way the tables, can function as sort of trial run for the stub creation (which will be more controversial).

As to being an operator, I'm not really sure what you mean exactly. The bot only has to run once so there is no need to assign people the ability to run it. I will, however, modify the request & the bot's user page to give you credit... I should have done that all along.--ThaddeusB (talk) 15:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Chaunax -- ITIS says extant, not extinct

You created an article Chaunax supposedly about an extinct fish. Maybe you could check your sources, as this is the genus name for an extant species of fish. --69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

If you're using Sepkoski it lists Chaunax as last occurrence as recent. Also did you really mean to create botha n article Graphiuricthys and Graphiurichthys? --69.226.103.13 (talk) 08:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

My bad! Thanks for catching my errors! Abyssal (talk) 20:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Alum Shale

User:Beagel has modified and moved Alum Shale making it an article about alum shales in general, whereas you had started a stub about the formation. Please see discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geology#Alum_shale and comment there. Vsmith (talk) 14:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Explanation

Well, this isn't the first time the Popular Culture section has been removed from Deinosuchus: the last time it was removed, it was because it was deemed irrelevant to the article.--Mr Fink (talk) 14:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Both versions of the Popular Culture section were just glorified trivia, listing the (few) shows and movies that it is used in. Ideally, the Popular Culture section should be about Popular Culture's view of the subject, and how it's perceived in media (like Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus Apatosaurus), or, how media distorts information about the subject (like how Walking With... perpetuates inaccurate information about Arsinoitherium). It should not be a laundry list of the movies and episodes where it's used as a stock villain/monster of the week.--Mr Fink (talk) 17:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Ichthyosaurs authorities

Many thanks for the barnstar. :) Burmeister (talk) 15:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Paleontological media

I have nominated Category:Paleontological media (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:Paleontology media (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Re:Hey

There are no secrets. Its just time, patience and lucky... :) ... and some good references (The Paleobiology Database, Mikko's Haaramo, Cientific Papers, and more, some genera i look for in google research). Burmeister (talk) 02:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I need some help with this (what to do with the wrong article/redirect?): (1) Trememesacleis - the correct is Tremamesacleis, (2) Pentatarstostinus - the correct is Pentatarsostinius (that is synonym to Plesiosaurus), and (3) Yunnanonlepis - the correct is Yunnanolepis. Burmeister (talk) 02:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

In a search on Google, this mispelling: Pentatarstostinus, Trememesacleis and Yunnanonlepis, appears only in sites related to wikipedia, in databases like Mikkos' Haaramo and Paleobiology, Plesiosaur Directory, and others, they don't appears. Burmeister (talk) 03:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Placeholder images and placeholders in live articles

Hi Abyssal,

Can you please remove the placeholder images and placeholders that are in live articles? You've added placeholders in a large number of articles. I could understand their use in an article which is currently being updated, but many of these articles are pages you haven't touched in months. If these articles were in your own userspace, it would be one thing, but readers who are looking for content are instead viewing these pages with the word "placeholder" all over them. I'd remove the "placeholder" text and images myself, but there appear to be a great number of them [4]. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:26, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Understood, and thank you very much. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks and title comments

Hi Abyssal. Thanks for your support in the AFD for 2009 hadrosaur chewing study. I appreciate the revisions work you did on the article as well! One thing I wanted to tell you, and I hope you don't mind, is that I've changed the title back to the original "2009 hadrosaur chewing study". Although I understand why it might seem appropriate to name the study after the journal article (and I considered it myself), I think there are a lot of good reasons some sort of shorter name is required. First of all, the article is about the whole study, analysis, findings, etc, not just the journal article. Also, naming conventions suggest using the common name of a given article, and nobody (not the media, and I would venture to guess not the scientists themselves) would refer to this in shorthand by that long journal title. (I also think people would be intimidated by such a long name and might stray from reading it, or that it might hurt its chances in the AFD discussion, although that isn't really a factor here.) I'm open to different article name ideas, but I would suggest we wait until the AFD matter is resolved. Hope that's cool! — Hunter Kahn _(c) 00:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, and thanks for the Barnstar too! — Hunter Kahn _(c) 00:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Tables

That looks great! I'd just change "Name" to either "Genus" or "Other taxa" or something, since technically the binomial is the name, not the genus alone. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Definitely like the colored rows. Makes it very simple to see 'valid' taxa at a glance. Good idea! Dinoguy2 (talk) 14:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

That would be great! If I have time this weekend I may try to re-do the LK Gobi formation tables too. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any geographic distribution or quarry names that would separate them, unless it can be bent to say which village they were found near. As far as I know the entire Yixian is geographically within one state (Liaoning). Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, wait a sec--Xu and Norell 2006 lists the specific localities for most of the non-avian dinos. Could we use that? I can fill it in if you don't have the paper. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, one more follow-up: I found a list of counties in Liaoning which seems to correspond to the ones listed in the Xu & Norell paper, so County might be a good way to go for the geographic breakdown. Thanks! Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "bird", ;), but no--both Avialans and Deinonychosaurs are sister groups among Paravians. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

However, if you're defining "bird" as "Avialan", you should write Avialans instead of Birds so everybody knows what you mean. Or just lump everything together as birds and other theropods, with specifics in the notes. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Eh, there really isn't a standard use. In fact many people nowadays (including the draft PhyloCode) define Aves=Neornithes, so none of the Yixian forms are birds under that definition. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There's a big push to use the traditional "class" and "order" names for crown groups. Actually this is already done for Mammalia (defined as modern mammals only, Catorocauda etc. left out), Crocodylia (modern forms only, mekosuchines etc. left out), Amphibia (frogs + salamanders, Ichthyostega etc. left out). Aves is really the odd man out in being considered anything other than the common ancestor of all modern forms, and has among them ost random cut-off points of the major groups (why is Archaeopteryx a bird and not Microraptor? Tradition is literally the only reason and is the least scientific one you could find). All that aside, there's enough controversy over what is and isn't a bird or in Avialae that it's getting into unstable territory to separate them out. For example, at least two schools (pro dino origins and anti-dino origins) that think oviraptorosaurs are more advanced than Archaeopteryx. So where do we put Caudipteryx without choosing sides? Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Also it looks a bit preferential to give theropods 3 subsections but lump all the mammals, ornithischians etc., together under one header. You and I know theropods are the coolest and deserve the most attention but others might not agree ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"Avialans" is most correct, without all the tricky ambiguousness of "Birds". Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, all the bed names are official and county is the term used for the sub-prefecture divisions in China. Dinoguy2 (talk) 03:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Strat zones

Hi Abyssal, I see you've been adding specific stratigraphic info for the Morrison dinosaurs, which is great. However, please try to put the additions into some kind of context. Supersaurus currently has "Present in stratigraphic zones 5." This is not only not a full sentence, but would be meaningless even to me had I not seen your other edits. Something like "Fossil remains of Supersaurus have been recovered from Stratigraphic Zone 5 of the Morrison Formation, dating to xx million years ago" would be more appropriate and less confusing, IMO. Thanks! Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

List of edrioasteroids, etc.

And similar articles.

You've created this article and others referencing, "A compendium of fossil marine animal genera (STYLOPHORA)," however your data come from another database that you don't specifically reference, although it is what you link to. You should be clear about your sources. Would you please correct this in the articles?

Were the lists of genera for each article created by a bot? This should be noted in the article, and, I think that running a bot on wikipedia requires prior approval. Since you list yourself as the creator, rather than the bot, this is beginning to remind me of how anybot started out. See this for more details about my concern to where a bad start can lead.

The database that you take the information from includes the disclaimer that the names may not be taxonomically correct, and no attempt was made to correct this in your articles, although your introduction includes this disclaimer. How is this useful to a general encyclopedia reader to include lists of organisms with improper taxonomic status? In fact, Sepkoski's list contains incorrect genera names and extant taxa in some cases. If you create an article, by using a bot to scour this database, have you excluded extant taxa? How do you deal with extant taxa?

The "status" column should be "taxonomic status."

The taxonomic terms descriptions are overboard for these articles, in my opinion. I suggest brief and primary descriptions of the terms properly wikilinked would suffice. On sentence each, after an introduction about the taxon! would be more appropriate, in my opinion, for a general audience. The article is about members of the taxon, not about nomenclature.

This should be discussed on the article talk pages, however, the bot aspect is my primary reason for posting on your talk page rather than on all of the article talk pages. If you have a better idea for a centralized location, let me know.

I am concerned if these articles are bot generated content without authorization to run a bot. Particularly bot generated content that is not clear about the article's relationship to the database. The article talk page would be an appropirate place to post this information for the reader. Please let me know what is going on. Thanks. --69.226.103.13 (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

credits on portal

Hello, I think there are many mistakes on credits at Portal:Paleontology/Selected picture. I just announce this mistake because I would prefer to ommit this information when every image has its own description page at commons. --Snek01 (talk) 12:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

{{italictitle}}

Hi, do you know that you italicise article titles without using {{italictitle}} by removing the "name" section from the taxobox? Good luck if you're trying for the 3,000,000th article: Special:Statistics. Smartse (talk) 03:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a diff as an example. Smartse (talk) 03:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)