Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs

Mass merge proposal for redundant clade pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

A mixed set of out comes for a complex omnibus proposal, looking to consolidate small clades into their nearest parents, on the basis of short text and context. Many were implemented (see list under Subproposal, Merges Ready to Execute); some were opposed; those remaining are probably best discussed separately, as this discussion has been stale since May. Klbrain (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

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As inspired by the above merge proposal for Caenagnathoidea and having been thinking about a similar case at Cerapoda the other day, and so I decided to dig through the entire tree of dinosaur articles to find how many similar cases there might be. Below the list of articles I think should be merged into their nearest parent clade, all grouped here as opposed to opening well over a dozen separate merge requests across many talk pages. I'm happy to elaborate on my reasoning for individual cases, but as a rule I'm targeting clades which have little to say about them distinct from the larger group they are apart of. Their anatomy, biology, biogeography, etc provides little unique material and even with work on expansion there would be little to say about these clades aside from a taxobox list, a few diagnostic traits, and some phylogenetic trees. Clades which simply exist to name a node that unites two other clades (such as the example of Cerapoda) are prime candidates here, especially when multiple of these are nested sequentially. The list is as following, with question marks denoting cases I feel less certain about:

• Heterodontosaurinae
• Huayangosauridae?
• Nodosaurinae
• Ankylosaurinae? (maybe have an article for Ankylosaurini instead?)
• Thescelosaurinae?
• Cerapoda
• Hadrosauromorpha
• Massopoda
• Gravisauria
• Opisthocoelicaudiinae
• Saltasaurini
• Neotheropoda and/or Averostra (having both seems unnecessary, but which to cut if not both I'm not certain on)
• Furileusauria
• Carnotaurini
• Orionides
• Avetheropoda
• Neovenatoridae (disuse)
• Eutyrannosauria
• Daspletosaurini?
• Pennaraptora
• Caenagnathoidea (see above)
• Sinovenatorinae? (might be enough material for a page, not sure)
• Troodontinae? (outside of my area of expertise, unsure if meaningfully distinct from other troodontids)
• Saurornitholestinae, Dromaeosaurinae, Velociraptorinae (contents too unstable)
• I don't know birds well enough to judge which, but I'm sure half of the nodes within Avialae could be condensed

Open to opinions on any of the above or nomination of any further clades. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 21:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

We could maybe get rid of Avebrevicauda and Ornithothoraces, which are both very similar to Pygostylia in content. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 22:24, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Off-topic but where could I propose something similar for pterosaurs (or any other group of organisms)? I apologize; I'm not too familiar with Wikipedia talk. 74.101.255.131 (talk) 09:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

At WT:PAL. For non-extinct animals it would be at WT:TREE I assume, although I'm not certain. I have a rough proposal in the works already, but I wasn't going to bring it up until after we're done with all the dinosaurs. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 22:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

To follow-up on my earlier comment, I have a rough draft of what I think the pterosaur pages would look like after merging a number of the redundant nodes. You can see it here. Basically, there would only need to be 6 pages for clades above the family level - Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea, Archaeopterodactyloidea, Pteranodontia, Azhdarchoidea, and Ornithocheiromorpha, which is many fewer than currently exist. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 00:45, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Support: Caenagnathoidea (obviously), Heterodontosaurinae, Huayangosauridae, Nodosaurinae, Thescelosaurinae, Averostra, Neotheropoda, Orionides, Saltasaurini, Furileusauria, Carnotaurini, Neovenatoridae, Pennaraptora, Daspletosaurini, Gravisauria, Ankylosaurinae

• Support adding: Genasauria (into Ornithischia), Iguanodontia (into Ornithopoda), Bagualosauria (into sauropodomorpha), Plateosauria (into sauropodomorpha), Alvarezsauridae (into Alvarezsauroidea), Deinonychosauria into Paraves
  

Support, but not right now: Saurornitholestinae, Dromaeosaurinae, Velociraptorinae: Merging all three of these is gonna be a big undertaking and there's some major literature thats going to be published soon that I suspect will change a lot of this.
Oppose:

• Sinovenatorinae and Troodontinae: Both are relatively stable for the time being and they are sister taxa, so they are not superfluous.
  
• Hadrosauromorpha: I oppose on practical grounds unless its possible to introduce collapsible text nested in multiple tiers to the infoboxes because the infobox for Hadrosauroidea would be insanely long and would mess with the layout of the page.
  

My main concern is that this is gonna be a lot of busy work. Do we have people willing to get this done and are there specific design/scientific guidelines that should be followed? --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 23:30, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It will require a bit of work, but I think for something with such a big impact it will be worthwhile, and it will ease work in the future as work can be focused on a smaller number of more meaningful clade-level articles. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

General Comment - I wonder if it's possible to, on certain articles, make the entire taxonlist in the taxobox collapsible? This could solve taxobox length issues holding back several merges such as Hadrosauromorpha and Lithostrotia. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

We could also just put "see below" and have a subsection of the article listing the genera if the infobox becomes too unwieldy. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

A collapsible list would be a more elegant solution, in my opinion. Should be possible The Morrison Man (talk) 08:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm against the collapsible lists, because when expanded they tend to have an ugly and problematic cascading effect of pushing images down which can also impact images and cladograms on the other side of the page creating gharish whitespaces. If the taxon list is unreasonably long thats probably a sign that the article when finished would also be unreasonably long, and maybe more subgroups need to be split (eg, Diamantinasauria, Lirainosaurinae, Saltasauroidea, Colossosauria, Eutitanosauria (even Andesauridae/oidea) would take up much of the genera of the titanosaur article). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:29, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

That was my suggestion in the sub-proposal below for sauropods. Eutitanosauria as I recall is just a node for Colossosauria + Saltasauroidea so it would probably be unnecessary as an article, but I agree with the other suggestions here. Generally, the fact that the lists are collapsible mostly circumvents the formatting issues. Most of these merges will not require long lists of genera. The exceptions will be taxa like Hadrosauriformes, Macronaria, and I think we can make a different accommodation in those cases. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 23:38, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I like the collapsible lists because they prevent the need to create articles just for arbitrary taxonlist divides. Lithostrotia and Hadrosauromorpha remain the foremost examples of articles that lack strong reason to exist for content reasons but would need to if we lack a workaround for absurdly long lists of genera. To me, preventing the splitting of whole other articles just to split up taxobox space is more of a priority than avoiding a collapsible list. I don't think the cascading effect is a noteworthy concern because they can simply be collapsed again when the reader isn't actively looking at the list, causing minimal obstruction. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Make what is concluded into guidelines

• As I mentioned on Discord, since this discussion has now gotten far, I think we should try to formulate some of the conclusions into general guidelines, so we don't end up with the same mess down the line anyway because drive-by editors undo some of these changes. Something about the number of taxa included in a clade determines if it should be an article, what to do with basal or indeterminate taxa, etc. FunkMonk (talk) 23:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I'll draw up a spreadsheet and see what the commonalities between the suggested merges have been and see if that can be used to inform policies going forward. I'm going to restrict this to ornithischians and theropods, because the consensus for how to approach the sauropods seems to be less resolved. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 23:40, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to give feedback, but I do not like the guidelines. I think the logic behind these merging decisions is very case by case and building a cage of precedent with such specific rules as numbers of taxa and publications is going to lead to nothing but trouble down the line. I've been advocating for the merging of subfamily and tribe level articles on the understanding they could be considered for reinstatement in the future if someone finds enough to write about them and these guidelines would make that in direct opposition to policy. Rule two in particular I don't like - how much unique material there is to say about a given group is a key consideration and there's no saying that will always necessarily be the same for two sister taxa. Dipldocinae and Apatosaurinae is an already cited example that should, in my opinion, break this rule, as the latter is commented on far more for its large scale taxonomy and anatomical distinctiveness. The third rule seems redundant as it includes an exception based on an entirely undefined level of "compelling morphological distinction" which just brings it back to "use judgement on a case by case basis" instead of having a guideline. I personally would prefer not creating guidelines at all but if we do I do not like this first draft of them. The node rule seems irrelevant to our concern; Maginocephalia and Averostra both have two subclades considered worthy of articles but they have each received opposition here; and if you think Marginocephalia is article worthy, then Cerapoda also meets this rule, despite being used as a counterexample in the rule itself. What matters is whether the combination of those subclades adds up to a clade that is worth discussing as its own article, which doesn't seem to correlate to the criteria of this rule to me. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 06:34, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Instead of firm rules based on arbitrary criteria I would prefer an explanation behind the general philosophy of what we're looking for when we decide on these merges/splits to act as guidelines. I think this would achieve the desired role of having guidelines without restricting our choises using inflexible rules that can't accomodate the actual motivating factors behind these decisions. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 06:38, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Please put your suggestions for any proposed guidelines in the appropriate subproposal, so we can make sure they're all in one place if we want to try and reach some kind of consensus. I have no strong opinions about guidelines, I just made my proposal as an exercise in trying to retroactively apply rules to decisions we seem to have come to by vibes only, and those were what I came up with. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:15, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Subproposal, Ornithischian taxonomy

• Support for the ornithischian clades (I'll maybe look into the other groups later. Below is my idea for taxonomic organization, bold is clades with current articles: (Alternatives: Pachyrhinosaurini [incl Pachyrostra] is acceptable if there is enough about the anagenesis to write about; Hadrosauromorpha is okay if the genus list at Hadrosauriformes becomes too long)

Ornithischia (incl Saphornithischia, Genasauria)

Silesauridae (incl Sulcimentisauria)

Heterodontosauridae (incl Heterodontosaurinae)

Thyreophora (incl Thyreophoroidea, Eurypoda)

Stegosauria (incl Huayangosauridae?)

Stegosauridae (incl Dacentrurinae, Stegosaurinae)

Ankylosauria (incl Euankylosauria)

Parankylosauria

Polacanthinae

Nodosauridae (incl Nodosaurinae, Struthiosaurini, Panoplosaurini)

Ankylosauridae (incl Shamosaurinae)

Ankylosaurinae (incl Ankylosaurini, Euoplocephalini)

Neornithischia (incl Cerapoda, Marginocephalia?)

Thescelosauridae (incl Jeholosauridae, Orodrominae, Thescelosaurinae)

Pachycephalosauria (incl Pachycephalosauridae, Pachycephalosaurinae, Pachycephalosaurini)

Ceratopsia (incl Neoceratopsia, Archaeoceratopsidae, Euceratopsia, Coronosauria, Ceratopsoidea, Ceratopsomorpha)

Chaoyangsauridae

Leptoceratopsidae

Protoceratopsidae

Ceratopsidae

Centrosaurinae (incl Nasutoceratopsini, Eucentrosaura, Centrosaurini, Pachyrhinosaurini, Pachyrostra)

Chasmosaurinae (incl Triceratopsini)

Ornithopoda (incl Clypeodonta, Iguanodontia, Euiguanodontia, Dryomorpha)

Hypsilophodontidae (incl Hypsilophodontia)

Rhabdodontomorpha

Rhabdodontidae

Elasmaria

Dryosauridae

Ankylopollexia (incl Styracosterna, Neoiguanodontia)

Hadrosauriformes (incl Iguanodontidae, Hadrosauroidea, Hadrosauromorpha)

Hadrosauridae (incl Euhadrosauria)

Saurolophinae (incl Austrokritosauria, Brachylophosaurini, Saurolophini, Kritosaurini, Edmontosaurini)

Lambeosaurinae (incl Aralosaurini, Tsintaosaurini, Arenysaurini)

Corythosauria (incl Parasaurolophini, Lambeosaurini)

• My general feelings are that nodes are not very useful as there is not much to discuss beyond shared traits and ancestry, which can also fit in the parent article. Tribes are normally very limited in scope and don't get much information beyond the genera (except if there is good cases for stuff like anagensis, which could then be discussed at the smallest clade containing it). Substantial uncertainties (Hadrosauriformes and Hadrosauroidea are almost identical and differ in the placement of Iguanodon, causing many genera to be one or the other) would cause duplication of genera if not contained within a single parent. And lastly article size, some nodes like Marginocephalia even though they are important, really can't have much content since their subgroups are so different. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  I should also mention that I'm more than willing to tackle the ornithischian taxonomy pages and revamp, even though I'm not that active overall, since its directly relevant to some things I'm doing elsewhere. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree more or less. Marginocephalia is important enough that it should have an article in my opinion, even if it turns out to be very short. There are a few changes I would make, but this whole exercise is making me think we should limit this to just ornithischians or just theropods for the time being and then move to another clade. Otherwise this thread is going to get absurdly long. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  I essentially agree with your proposed merges except for Marginocephalia. I have found the proliferation of node articles unhelpful at best and confusing at worst, so eliminating is a positive in my eyes. Support. SilverTiger12 (talk) 06:00, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I've made this its own subsection just for ornithischians to help divide the workload up. Some thoughts about Marginocephalia and other nodes.

The two subgroups of Marginocephalia are too divergent at this point for any real discussion of anatomy, evolution (we are missing ~40 million years of pachycephalosaur evolution), and even history. The biggest thing I can see in favour of it is its been a strong clade (except some phylogenetic studies don't recover it well; and that doesn't stop us from accepting a Genasauria lump), and it being a possible place to discuss the history of pachycephalosaur classification. Except that the history of pachycephalosaurs spans across all of Neornithischia (sister to Ornithopoda, Ceratopsia, or outside both) making the latter a better place for it. Plus the article as it stands is small so a merge now can be undone later to very minimal loss.

Iguanodon is a problematic taxon because it has so many similarities to taxa around it, so using Hadrosauroidea and excluding Iguanodon means theres ~20 genera (from Barilium inclusive to Alrithinus exclusive) that would need to be mentioned on both Hadrosauroidea and Ankylopollexia since they are 50/50 hadrosauroids or not. It's easier I think to just accept the polytomy at Hadrosauriformes and put the article there, allowing us include everything on "iguanodontoids" that may either be a clade or a grade within one article.

Orodrominae (burrowing), Austrokritosauria and Arenysaurini (biogeography) and Pachyrhinosaurini (anagenesis) might have topics to warrant their own articles, but it doesn't hurt much to separate them out later; no articles I'm suggesting to merge are too big to risk loosing information. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:17, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The Iguanodon situation echoes the many taxa that dance around Camptosaurus - I wonder if shifting the Ankylopollexia split to either Dryomorpha or Styracosterna might be a good idea now that more and more taxa are popping up around there and splitting in and out of nesting with Camptosaurus itself. Both are terms are, in my experienced, more widely used in the literature as reference points than Ankylopollexia is. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose the deletion or merging of Marginocephalia. It serves the same utility as Thyreophora. It's one of the "canonical" major groups of dinosaurs and its exclusion could needlessly confuse readers. Additionally, there is already a List of marginocephalian type specimens which would probably need to be split if this article goes under because it wouldn't make sense to have two separate articles for the clades themselves and only one article for their types. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Support all other proposed changes. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:35, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

    Thyreophora has multiple subclades and genera within it that are clearly not part of the two main subgroups, so we can trace the ancestry and evolution of thyreophorans. Marginocephalians we cannot. Plus the list of types article is very easy to split if needed, or it can even remain since the ~15 pachycephalosaurs to ~70 ceratopsians is not a huge issue. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:43, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

    While the suggestion gives me extensive pause, I think a look at the current content highlights why such a move may be relevant. The attempt to cover the group as a single topic feels incredibly unnatural and forced because it's trying desperately to draw comment biological ground between two different topics. While it's perhaps the most notable of all node articles, it is very much nothing more than that. Still, I'm not currently committing firmly to either position for that specific article. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• I'm personally more fond of tribe level articles than others seem to be - while there are some that simply collect a few taxa and leave little to discuss, I think the usual similarities between their constituent members, often intertwined taxonomic histories, and hyperfocused scope gives them a lot more potential as articles than nodes and arbitrary stopgaps. I think you could definitely make small but complete feeling articles for groups like Nasutoceratopsini, Triceratospini, Pachyrhinosaurini, Ankylosaurini/Euoplocephalini, Panoplosaurini, Struthiosaurini, and most if not all of the many hadrosaur tribes (I think Parasaurolophini and Lambeosaurini are more wieldy on their own than united as Corythosauria, which I'm highly suspect would work naturally despite sounding intuitive on paper). That said, I'm not opposed to the suggestion of merging them for now and leaving the door open for re-separation if anyone decides to put in the work to actually write the articles. The nodosaur tribes in particular might be worth keeping separate or require separation at later date given the proposal of nodosaur paraphyly. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
• I think Stegosauria could honestly all be collapsed into a singular article. Stegosaurids dominate the topic of stegosaur research and I feel when you add more basal taxa onto that topic you don't mandate that much more article space. Having both seems, to me, to just be doubling the workload unnecessarily. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
• Are there any strong opinions on Chaoyangosauridae being meaningful or not? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  My only opinion on the matter is that if we merge it, the Ceratopsia article needs a much more comprehensive coverage of the group's evolution. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  The ankylosaur tribes should definitely not be kept, systematics there are too volatile for the moment for all of those groups (why I also suggest merging Nodosaurinae). Nasutoceratopsini and Centrosaurini (the latter not currently an article) are also only sometimes recovered, and there is not anything particularly special about Triceratopsini other than all the component genera at one time being considered synonyms of Triceratops (the anagenesis and evolutionary implications discussed in Fowler & Freedman Fowler 2020 are for the branch a few steps outside Triceratopsini).

  I was going to suggest Stegosauridae as another article to merge, but I refrained given it is already a larger article. Much of the content would be duplicated between the two pages though so I also support it.

  Chaoyangsauridae I have no strong feelings about. Psittacosaurus already requires us to discuss the ceratopsian origins, and even though its a consistently recovered family the content to write at it would be mainly from Han et al 2018 which also included Psittacosaurus in the family.

  I am unconvinced of the hadrosaur tribes. Except for Kritosaurini and Arenysaurini there isn't much of note about any of them, especially Aralosaurini and Tsintaosaurini which are incompatible with Arenysaurini, and having a page at Corythosauria rather than Parasaurolophini and Lambeosaurini gives a good umbrella of the "core" lambeosaurines which have the most history and content (eg all the juveniles being synonyms). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that the idea of a page for the core derived lambeosaurs sounds good on paper, I'm suspect enough distinct literature exists exploring advanced lambeosaurs to the exclusion of earlier ones and vice versa in order to support a page of its own. Beyond separating the taxobox, I think the result would simply be a content fork. Even the history of cheneosaurs and other juvenile taxa is something entirely restricted to Lambeosaurini, not Corythosauria as a whole.

  Sofar as tribes go, I think Nasutoceratopsini provides a good example: a small history section could discuss how they were only recently recognized and different from previous centrosaur understanding, the anatomy section could discuss their more primitive traits, longer horns and less ornamented frills, a classification section could go into heavier detail about the uncertainty of their monophyly, and a section on distribution and biogeography could be supported based on their basis in the south as well as more northern discoveries. Various isolated unnamed specimens could also be included in some section or another. That might not be an enormous article, but I think its packs enough quality to justify its existence. Some tribes are more fruitful in this respect than others (I have particularly big doubts about the viability of Centrosaurini as an article), but I think most offer enough. Again though, I'm willing to go along with their merging for the moment with possible considerations for future expansion. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:21, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  Stegosauria has now been drafted as a singular article at User:LittleLazyLass/sandbox2. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 04:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  Looks like a couple of the references are borked, but otherwise it looks great! --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah that looks really good. A lot more robust than the other articles for the group at the moment. Good work! The Morrison Man (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Since we have already discussed sinking several subfamilies and other derived-member-endpoints for larger groups, do we think Ankylosaurinae requires a separate article? Similar to Stegosauria/Stegosauridae, I think most of the subject matter would be identical between it and the more inclusive article, and it isn't as if the evolution of tail clubs is something exclusive to Ankylosaurinae seeing as shamosaurs already possess handles. I thought maybe an Ankylosaurini article instead might work as it could discuss science pertaining specifically to the derived American clade, namely the history of assigning much of the group to Euoplocephalus and the continuing taxonomic debates between Arbour and Penkalski, in a way that might seem too specific for a generalized ankylosaurine or ankylosaurid article, but even then I'm not entirely sure of the necessity. Would a single unified ankylosaurid article be too much? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Ankylosaurini isn't a place where we could discuss the derived systematics being problematic, since Penalski doesn't recognize that group and many studies don't recover it. There should be sufficient information on early ankylosaurids (eg. ?polacanthids, Liaoningosaurus, shamosaurines) for a separate Ankylosaurinae, otherwise I would say have all the material at Ankylosauridae proper rather than a split at a clade thats far more problematic. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 14:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

General consensus so far seems to be that Marginocephalia and subfamily/tribes are without consensus, but the other proposed merges are supported. I'm not going to take action to redirect any articles yet, first step will be improving the targets of these redirects so no content is lost. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:31, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Subproposal, Theropod taxonomy

Theropoda (incl. Neotheropoda, Averostra)

Herrerasauridae

Coelophysoidea (incl. Coelophysidae)

Ceratosauria (incl. Abelisauroidea, Ceratosauridae)

Abelisauridae

Carnotaurinae (incl. Carnotaurinae, Furelisauria, Carnotaurini)

Majungasaurinae

Noasauridae

Tetanurae (incl. Orionides, Avetheropoda, Carnosauria)

Megalosauroidea

Spinosauridae

Spinosaurinae (needs independent page or Baryonychinae needs to be merged up)

Baryonychinae

Megalosauridae

Piatnitzkysauridae

Carnosauria (incl. Allosauroidea, Allosauridae, Neovenatoridae)

Metriacanthosauridae

Carcharodontosauridae

Coelurosauria (incl. Maniraptoriformes, Coeluridae)

Tyrannosauroidea (incl. Eutyrannosauria)

Proceratosauridae

Megaraptora

Tyrannosauridae (incl. Albertosaurinae, Tyrannosaurinae)

Ornithomimosauria

Ornithomimidae

Deinocheiridae

Compsognathidae

Maniraptora (incl. Pennaraptora)

Alvarezsauroidea (incl. Alvarezsauridae)

Therizinosauria (incl. Therizinosauridae)

Oviraptorosauria (incl. Caenagnathoidea)

Caudipterygidae

Caenagnathidae

Oviraptoridae

Scansoriopterygidae

Paraves (incl. Archaeopterygidae, Deinonychosauria)

Anchiornithidae

Dromaeosauridae

Halszkaraptorinae

Unenlagiinae

Microraptoria

Eudromaeosauria (incl. Velociraptorinae, Dromaeosaurinae, Saurornitholestinae)

Troodontidae (incl. Troodontinae, Jinfengopteryginae, Sinovenatorinae)

Avialae (incl. Avebrevicauda, Jeholornithidae, Jinguofortisidae, Ornithothoraces, Pygostylia)

Confuciusornithidae

Enantiornithes (incl. Gobipterygidae, Iberomesornithidae)

Avisauridae

Bohaiornithidae

Longipterygidae

Pengornithidae

Euornithes (incl. Ambiortiformes, Cimolopterygidae, Ichthyornithes, Ornithurae, Patagopterygiformes, Schizoouridae, Yanornithiformes)

Hongshanornithidae

Songlingornithidae

Hesperornithes

Vegaviidae

Aves

Here's my proposal for reorganizing theropods. It involves a few merges and the expansion of Carcharodontosauridae to Carcharodontosauria. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:27, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Some thoughts. For convenience, maybe we also merge Carnosauria into Tetanurae since the support for Megalosauroidea + Allosauroidea isn't definitive yet and otherwise it would be equivalent to Allosauroidea. Abelisauroidea could be merged up since noasaurid placements are volatile (see eg. Huinculsaurus paper). Coelophysoidea can include Coelophysidae and Coelophysinae if they aren't already combined (or in this case we could merge down and have Coelophysoidea at the Coelophysidae article). Dilophosauridae might be good to merge up, its not certain if its a clade (see Dilophosaurus redescription). I would merge Spinosaurinae and Baryonychinae up, but the expansion work around those clades means they might be big enough to keep (note a lot of the content is just phylogeny and when taxa were named). Coeluridae could be merged? And Proceratosauridae should be kept (solid clade + crested means anatomy can be discussed). Jinfengopteryginae could be merged, and personally I think Sinovenatorinae and Troodontinae as well. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I've implemented most of the changes you proposed, because I think they're overall very good. I was hesitant to merge carnosauria just because of the historical importance of the name, but discussion of that can easily be folded into the Tetanurae article. The reason I was hesitant to merge therizinosauridae with therizinosauria is that both articles are quite substantial and therizinosauridae includes mostly one morphotype and excludes enough taxa that there is little redundancy in my opinion. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 07:05, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would personally oppose the merging of Carnosauria. It's probably tenable to cover it at Tetanurae, but between its expanded historical usage and modern uncertainty as to the potential inclusion of megalosaurs, I think there's enough to hold up an article and as long as that's possible I think its worth doing for such a major clade. That said, I think the pivot to Carcharodontosauria is incredibly slick and give it strong support. Abelisauroidea also gives me a bit of hesitation given it does see extensive usage as an operational unit in liteature, but my own Stegosauria logic about irrelevant basal taxa does make me willing to go along with canning it. I'm also inclined to stand up for Majungasaurinae and Carnotaurinae, I feel that's a pretty clean divide. Not gonna die on the hill if everyone else wants them gone, though. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd also keep Majungasaurinae and Carnotaurinae, each subfamily seems to have a lot of anatomical and biogeographic relevance worth discussing on their own pages. NGPezz (talk) 16:48, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't really think we need to keep Allosauridae seperate, as the only valid genera assigned to it are Allosaurus and Saurophaganax. Those could be covered under Allosauroidea, no? The Morrison Man (talk) 08:19, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Good catch, definitely doesn't need to be kept separate. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 08:43, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the proposal to reflect this suggestion. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 14:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would support merging Carcharodontosauridae (along with Neovenatoridae) to a newly created Carcharodontosauria. I already did a bit of preliminary work on the taxonomy at User:Hemiauchenia/sandbox if that's of use. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

That's badass, it looks great so far! --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 04:13, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I actually think we have it backwards, Carcharodontosauridae is more popular in the literature, strongly supported in most analyses, and has much deeper priority than Carcharodontosauria. The family is most likely what people are looking for when they search up "carcharodontosaur" or "what type of theropod is Giganotosaurus" or something like that. The broader clade was created to basically mean "carcharodontosaurids and neovenatorids", and that purpose has been losing traction ever since megaraptorans left Neovenatoridae. I would instead opt for Carcharodontosauria to be merged into Carnosauria/Allosauroidea, leaving Carcharodontosauridae as a separate article. It is my opinion that well-established families should be prioritized over broader but more weakly diagnosed clades during this whole process. NGPezz (talk) 16:48, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree generally, but when those weakly diagnosed clades consist exclusively of the stem group to a single family with the same name (i.e. Alvarezsauroidea to Alvarezsauridae, Therizinosauria to Therizinosauridae, and Carcharodontosauria to Carcharodontosauridae), it is more conducive to effective navigation of the groups by minimizing the number of articles with very similar names wherever possible. This means that someone looking for X clade gets a comprehensive treatment of all members of the broadest clade to bear that name. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:28, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't really follow this argument. If someone's looking for "tyrannosaur", would they be looking for Tyrannosaurus, Tyrannosauridae, or Tyrannosauroidea? It could be any of those, they each serve a useful purpose and their potential content is much more extensive than just providing a definition and a few diagnostic features. We can continue to squabble about alvarezsaurs and therizinosaurs in more detail elsewhere, but at least for carcharodontosaurs, I've stated that my proposed solution is to merge Carcharodontosauria into Carnosauria (or Allosauroidea, whichever sticks). Would that solve the issue for that area, at least? NGPezz (talk) 21:08, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The reason I bring those cases up is because the logic of transferring the information about a broader clade with a very similar name follows for carcharodontosauria/carcharodontosauridae. To place non-carcharodontosaurs into the page for Allosauroidea would be akin to merging all non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroids into the page for Coelurosauria. The clades with associated names should be consolidated with one another, if they are to be merged at all, not with a broader clade that bears a different name, in my opinion. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 21:46, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

In my eyes, if searching "carcharodontosaur", "Carcharodontosauria", or "Carcharodontosauridae" all bring you to the same place, is there really a material difference whether the latter is technically the most used? They're still going right to a place that tells them all about it. It's simply a matter of function that, due to Neovenatoridae being essentially a grafted off extension of Carcharodontosauridae, it makes sense to be able to cover both families in one place as one topic rather than drawing a line through the middle of it. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 21:57, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this contradicts my preference, that being how Carnosauria/Allosauroidea is the best place to position information on Carcharodontosauria apart from its own article. Neovenator and a few other fragmentary taxa share some traits with carcharodontosaurids, that much is certain. Is the best spot to discuss that the place where people look for info on Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, or is it a general discussion on the ingroup relationships of carnosaurs, or is it simply an addition to the page for Neovenator. The first option sounds like the least optimal to me. In fact, looking at the current state of the pages, Carcharodontosauria is already redirected into Allosauroidea. Is there really enough information inherent to Carcharodontosauria (not just Carcharodontosauridae) that justifies a content fork?

I find it so weird when people want to merge Carcharodontosauridae into Carcharodontosauria (or Alvarezsauridae into Alvarezsauroidea) and yet want to split Carcharodontosauria off from Allosauroidea. It feels like there's some kind of arbitrary convoluted rule: "merge up, but only if the higher taxonomic level is named after the same genus and contains a single family, and if neither condition is met then do the opposite and split". We should instead be following guidelines based on prevailing scientific usage and historical/biological/ecological/anatomical distinction, the kind of information that enforces an article's actual notability. Names are meaningless beyond a convenient way to label and locate a set of taxa and the traits which group them together. NGPezz (talk) 00:31, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Given the historical association of Neovenator with carcharodontosaurs, the large scope of Carnosauria now that megalosaurs may be part of it, and the fact it was seen as necessary to coin a term uniting "neovenatorids" with carcharodontosaurids to begin with, yes, I do think the best place to put that discussion would be in the same place as where Carcharodontosauridae is discussed. Questioning if Carcharodontosauria has enough material for its own article in absence of Carcharodontosauridae doesn't matter since absolutely nobody is suggesting both exist - the proposal is that Carcharodontosauria be used out of convenience as the singular group level article for the entire topic of carcharodontosaurs. It wasn't out of any desire to merge Carcharodontosauridae because anybody suggests that's not an article worthy clade but merely a unique solution to address the very specific case of Neovenatoridae in what was perceived as the most intuitive and convenient way possible. Would you make an article at Pachycephalosauridae and then redirect Pachycephalosauria to Marginocephalia just because that's the parent clade? I don't think you would.

As for Alvarezsauroidea, yes, the fact there is only a single family undoubtedly at the core of it. If you took a complete list of taxa within Alvarezsauridae you also have the vast majority of taxa within Alvarezsauroidea - and you have the most defining taxa that dominate our knowledge and scientific discussion surrounding what the clade was like. To properly discuss Alvarezsauroidea as a clade you've basically written the majority of an article on Alvarezsauridae anyways, making the existence of that family as a separate article a WP:Semi-duplicate and better folded in as one comprehensive page. As it is with Stegosauria, and Megaraptora, as it more or less is with Therizinosauria, but not as it is with (ex.) Tyrannosauroidea, for which Tyrannosauridae is a minority of the specific diversity and exception from the standard anatomy of most of the clade, or for Oviraptorosauria which splits quite evenly into two distinct lineages. Orntihomimosauria is definitely an edge case given the existence of a small but notable offshoot in Deinocheiridae, though I would note the existence of Deinocheridae was a natural group was questioned by Mortimer and co. in the Lori analysis (Hesperornithoides paper). LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:03, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

To follow up on my original proposal, I have the draft merged article for Alvarezsauroidea (merging Alvarezsauridae into it) in my sandbox here. Comments welcome. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 15:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Gripes about carnosaurs and abelisaurs aside, I completely support everything here, except for one area I think doesn't go far enough - I would merge Therizinosauridae into Therizinosauria. If we're covering Ornithomimiosauria and Alvarezsauroidea in singular articles I don't see why the same wouldn't apply here. The extensive length of both pages certainly gives pause, but I'd point out that Therizinosauria has an enormous history section without much else and Therizinosauridae has a short history section with incredibly robust detail in every other section, it's a match made in heaven that would only need minor work to cover basal taxa in the other sections of Therizinosauridae. Also, while I'm here, what should be done about Bahariasauridae? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Bahariasauridae should be left as is I think because of the uncertainty around it at the moment. It may or may not even be a true clade. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 14:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I've added subgroups of Avialae to the list, comments would be appreciated. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 22:19, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know nearly enough about the systematics of avialans to make any specific recommendations based on the state of the literature. However, I do think that Pygostylia is a redundant article based on the framework we've been using. The Avialae page could include all clades down to Ornithoraces before being split into Euornithes and Enantiornithes. Similarly, I think Ornithurae could be similarly merged up into Euornithes since most of the relevant clades therein will have their own articles anyways. I won't touch the outline above just because I'm not the one who made it, but that's my recommendation. The whole purpose of this exercise as I see it is to have the absolute minimum number of pages possible without having the articles be too overly broad and I think the merges I've suggested accomplish that. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:46, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I've made some more changes, including one that will definitely be controversial. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 13:41, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that the internal classification of Paraves will probably change a lot in the near future (esp. anchiornithidae, troodontidae, etc), I think the safe choice is to leave Avialae as monophyletic and not merge it up with Paraves. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 15:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Objectively speaking, Avialae is an incredibly insignificant clade with 0 well-supported apomorphies. There's just very little that can be said for sure about the group, since we don't even know which taxa belong there. But I agree that merging it with Paraves may be too radical at the moment. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 17:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Avialae is often used as the diving line for "avian" as opposed to "non-avian" dinosaurs and so I don't think there's any scenario in which it can justified to simply fold it into Paraves like that's nothing. There's a reason that the knowledge and editing behaviour of multiple people in this discussion stopped at Paraves until you expanded it, it's the point in which the science transitions from one topic to another. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 17:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

And that's why, whenever Archaeopteryx is recovered outside Avialae, we always get headlines claiming "the first bird wasn't a bird" lol. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 18:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I have my own personal theories and opinions about Archaeopteryx and its relatives, but I think it should remain as is with Avialae as the highest-level "bird" taxon, and any uncertainty about which taxa should or should not be included can be discussed in the article body. At least until the literature reaches a more definitive answer. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments on the coelurosaurian area: I disagree with merging Deinocheiridae and Ornithomimidae into Ornithomimosauria, the two families are strongly anatomically divergent from both each other and more basal taxa such as Pelecanimimus, at least if you consider their evolutionary trajectories. I would also extend this line of thinking to Alvarezsauridae (relative to Alvarezsauroidea) and Therizinosauridae (relative to Therizinosauria). The families were established for the "core members" of each coelurosaurian group, those taxa which are so anatomically distinctive that the rest of the group must be described as "dinosaurs which are related to [Family] but are too 'normal' to qualify". For consistency we should consider these clades more akin to how we consider Oviraptorosauria and Tyrannosauroidea. I would also rather keep a separate article for Ornithothoraces, it's the point of common ancestry for the two biggest Mesozoic bird clades and no doubt there's a lot that could be said for it based on the shared biological and morphological adaptations of its constituents. NGPezz (talk) 16:48, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

In practice, the articles for Alvarezsauria, Therizinosauria, and Ornithomimosauria are mostly about Alvarezsauridae, Therizinosauridae, and Ornithomimidae, meaning they are pretty much redundant. I agree that a more comprehensive article could be written in the future. But our goal in this project as far as I understand it is to cut down on all the clade pages that are just "X is a clade defined as containing Y and Z" with only one or two cladograms and not much else because such articles do not convey independent information and they only serve to create multiple articles with very similar names which makes navigating them more difficult if you do not already have a full understanding of systematics already.

In theory, every single named clade would have its own article with a comprehensive discussion of all the literature related to it, but if someone was willing to do that, they already would have. I don't think any of us on this thread oppose the existence of articles like Averostra or Cerapoda on principle, and if someone wants to split them again and is willing to put the work in to make them good articles, then I'm fully in support of that. But right now, this seems to be the cleanest solution. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I've been following the discussion, and this comment here got me thinking about Notability in general, and led to me reading through the Notability guidelines: WP:Notability. The part that caught my attention was where it said: "Article content does not determine notability" WP:ARTN. My interpretation of that is that the current quality of the article right now does not determine notability in regards to whether the article should exist. (I am opposed to merging a lot of the clade articles. I enjoy systematics and navigating up and down different trees and clades.) Additional relevant Wikipedia policies: "Whether to create standalone pages" WP:PAGEDECIDE and WP:Merging. If we were to merge, I am also opposed to general guidelines, as I think each should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Cougroyalty (talk) 19:24, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally I disagree with Cynical Idealist's read on this, so I don't perceive this as an issue: irregardless of the amount of work that hypothetically would go into them, most of the merges articles would still be better off merged. I don't oppose Cerapoda because it's a stub but because I cannot envision it ever being more than a stub or a synthesized topic, because nobody writes about Cerapoda so much as they write about the two groups within and trying to cover them as a singular topic would never be necessary or natural, especially when a Neornithischia article also exists trying . The guideline I'd use to support the merges would be WP:Content Forks (or more accurately, WP:Semi-duplicates, which I believe many of these to be. It is impossible to adequately cover the topic of Therizinosauria without talking extensively and primarily about Therizinosauridae, and so it simply makes more sense to make the same page. While I do not suggest a fully fleshed out page on Therizinosauria would be identical to its subarticle, the amount of difference is not sufficient that it wouldn't make more sense to accommodate both. Regarding WP:Merging, I believe the reason of "overlap" is applicable in all proposed cases, and the reason of "short text" is applicable to nodes like Cerapoda which simply lack much content potential. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 20:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I do admit that Therizinosauria outnumbers Therizinosauridae in its degree of impact on the literature, so I'm less opposed to a merger there, as "therizinosaur" does seem to be more easily equated with Therizinosauria rather than Therizinosauridae. NGPezz (talk) 21:08, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Ornithothoraces, I originally suggested to merge it to Pygostylia, which is arguably more significant anatomically (since it contains all the taxa with bird-like tails). And some papers (like Hartman 2019) have suggested that Enantiornithes may be a paraphyletic grade, which could reduce the utility of Ornithothoraces a bit. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 19:01, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

What are opinions on whether it's better to keep Averostra or Tetanurae? The latter has more current content, various basal genera, and to my understanding forms a more significant divide in anatomy, whereas the former may be intuitive as the group that includes all of the large theropods that would dominate ecosystems through to the end of the Cretaceous, so it might accommodate more discussion of the common anatomy and ecological relationships of ceratosaurs, megalosaurs, carnosaurs, and tyrannosaurs as a whole. Having both still seems excessive to me but I can see the argument for either or the other as the first divide into a new article after Theropoda itself. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 20:10, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Just looking at their popularity in the literature, Tetanurae wins out by a landslide and has more historical significance in uniting coelurosaurs and carnosaurs. It's also a branch-based clade, so like you said there's more room to discuss the relevance of genera which do not slot into any major group. Averostra, on the other hand, is a node-based clade, so its article content will pretty much always be restrained to 'synapomorphies of Ceratosauria + Tetanurae'. NGPezz (talk) 20:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like a sound argument to me, just wanted to play devil's advocate but I would also support keeping it at Tetanurae. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 22:00, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that Tetanurae is much more relevant scientifically because it has stem-genera that are well-understood and the internal systematics warrant much more discussion than Averostra. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 21:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: In the Dromaeosauridae area, I disagree with letting articles such as Halszkaraptorinae and Unenlagiinae not be merged and the arguably more notable subfamilies such as Velociraptorinae and Dromaeosaurinae being merged. At least if Dromaeosaurinae is merged, make sure Velociraptorinae gets its own article, as genera such as Deinonychus, which has a quite a bit to do with the history of Dinosaur paleontology, and Velociraptor, which is quite well-known have their fair share of notability. I support the rest of the proposal though. PrathuCoder (talk) 16:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

The contents of the eudromaeosaur subfamilies are highly unstable. Sometimes Deinonychus is recovered as a dromaeosaurine, or a velociraptorine, or outside of both groups. Even Utahraptor has been recovered as a velociraptorine in at least one analysis. And I disagree that Halzskaraptorines and Unenlagiines are less notable. They exhibit much more divergent morphologies from eudromaeosaurs, and they may not even be dromaeosaurs at all, which is the primary rationale behind keeping them as their own separate articles. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 17:05, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. After doing a bit of looking around though, I think that it looks like Microraptoria is more stable than Unenlagiinae and Halszkaraptorinae. It also seems like that if according to a study Unenlagiinae is a sister clade to the Dromaeosaurs, Halszkaraptorinae is always a subfamily of it. Maybe a merge of Microraptoria with the Dromaeosauridae article or of Halszkaraptorinae with Unenlagiinae? Mind you, I'm not an expert at this stuff, but just an enthusiast. PrathuCoder (talk) 23:51, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

There's a lot of literature on microraptorines and they're very important to our understanding of the development of avian flight, which I think warrants its own article. As for Unenlagiines and Halszkaraptorines, their placement on the tree is unstable, but the actual makeup of those clades is very stable. In this discussion, when Dromaeosaurinae, Velociraptorinae, and Saurornitholestinae are described as "unstable", what that means is that there's very little consensus as to which genera are members of which subfamilies. There are only a few taxa that jump in and out of Unenlagiinae (Rahonavis and Pyroraptor) whereas there is very little overlap or consensus on the placement of taxa like Deinonychus, Boreonykus, Achillobator, Acheroraptor, Linheraptor, Dineobellator, etc, which makes the makeup of these groups too inconsistent to justify having an article for each of them. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 02:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I guessed that solidified your case. I now support the entirety of the proposal. PrathuCoder (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Subproposal, Sauropodomorph taxonomy

Sauropodomorpha (incl. Bagualosauria, Plateosauria, Massopoda, Anchisauria, Sauropodiformes)

Thecodontosauridae

Unaysauridae

Plateosauridae

Massospondylidae

Melanorosauridae

Sauropoda (incl. Gravisauria, Eusaropoda, Neosauropoda, Vulcanodontidae)

Lessemsauridae

Cetiosauridae

Mamenchisauridae

Turiasauria

Diplodocoidea (incl. Flagellicaudata)

Rebbachisauridae (incl. Kebbashia)

Dicraeosauridae

Diplodocidae

Diplodocinae

Apatosaurinae

Macronaria (incl. Camarasauridae, Somphospondyli, Laurasiformes)

Brachiosauridae

Euhelopodidae

Titanosauria

New article: Titanosaur classification (to circumvent making articles for all these uncertain clades)

Diamantinasauria

Colossosauria (incl. Lognkosauria, Rinconsauria)

Saltasauroidea (incl. Saltasauridae, Saltasaurinae, Opisthocoelocaudiinae, Saltasaurini)

This one is only very preliminary. Refining the titanosaur clade structure is a whole mess on its own that I wasn't prepared to fully propose right now. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I was reflexively ready to reject merging all the way to Neosauropoda, but when I think about it that really is just a node article with some extra bells and whistles. My general understanding of the science behind sauropods doesn't really change anywhere in that entire span. Other than I'm pretty amicable to everything here (good catch on me missing Flagellicaudata), and I'd even go a step further to suggest that Diplodocinae could probably be ditched too, there's not really as much uniting history and biology as there is with apatosaurs. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would agree on merging Diplodocinae into Diplodocidae. The Morrison Man (talk) 08:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I made the decision to leave the Diplodocid split the way it is in my proposal because the asymmetry between the length of the articles (Apatosaurinae and Diplodocinae). If one was the parent taxon of the other, I would suggest a merge, but since they are sister taxa, I think Diplodocinae needs an overhaul before considering a merge. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Oddly enough I support some separations here that aren't given. Eusauropoda is a great place to divide the "not-quite sauropods" from the true sauropods, since its pivoted on Shunosaurus and it and mamenchisaurs all have good material to draw from. The diplodocid subfamilies are a bit hesitant for me, Apatosaurinae at least is relevant as they were all at one point Apatosaurus, but that could be reason to merge it. Vulcanodontidae can probably go, it hasn't found much support in a while. As far as Macronaria goes, I think I have three things: Brachiosauridae, Euhelopodidae, Titanosauria are all solid enough to include, especially as Euhelopodidae may move into Mamenchisauridae and thats something of relevance. Within Titanosauria I started writing the classification section without much internal clade referencing, I would not really go beyond Colossosauria and Saltasauridae maybe? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:15, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I do think that, given the current state of the Diplodocidae article, Diplodocinae would have less priority of updating, which might leave it in a sorry state for quite a while longer. In this case, it would make sense to merge it into Diplodocidae, at least for now. (It's on my list of things to overhaul at some point, but I can't give any promises for reworking any time soon.) The Morrison Man (talk) 20:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Since Mamenchisauridae already has its own article, I don't think there's enough to really justify Eusauropoda or Neosauropoda getting their own articles. The daughter taxa are few enough that the infobox wouldn't be too long, and the general anatomy is more or less consistent, with the possible exception of the Lessemsaurids (which would have their own article anyways). As for Vulcanodontidae, I have no strong opinions on the matter, so I'll remove it at your suggestion. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:55, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I think Titanosauria is definitely a hard nut to crack. Somphospondyli and Lithostrothia feel like peak "stopgap" merge candidates without much biological distinction, but would result in such enormous taxon lists at Macronaria and Titanosauria that I'm not sure it's even tenable. Eutitanosauria is a node clade, and then Colossosauria and Saltasauroidea have been made the major division within derived titanosaurs, so they both feel like natural articles to have but I'm still not really sure if there's that much specific to say about ex. colossosaurians to the exclusion of other titanosaurs? Even stable smaller clades like Rinconsauria and Lognkosauria aren't really that substantive for material. There's a few solid clades like Aeolosaurini, Diamantinasauria, and Saltasauridae but they're few and far between. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 20:41, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Lithostrotia may not even be a natural clade, its unclear. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@A Cynical Idealist: I assume you meant to include Massospondylidae, not Melanorosauridae (which is barely used nowadays). —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 22:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

No Melanorosauridae was deliberate. It's a daughter taxon of Anchisauria, which would be subsumed into Massopoda, so that was delibertae. But I did accidentally omit Massospondylidae, so I've added it back into the outline. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 00:23, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Subproposal, Merges Ready to Execute

@LittleLazyLass:@IJReid:@The Morrison Man: I've added this subheader just to keep track of which merge proposals have been formally opened so we can make sure all the supporting/opposing views are being counted. This subproposal is not for discussion and is purely for archival and organizational purposes.

• Alvarezsauridae into Alvarezsauroidea - discuss here, draft of merged article is here No consensus, merge aborted
• Caenagnathoidea into Oviraptorosauria - discuss here, no draft necessary, one article just has text copy/pasted from the other Done
• Coelophysidae into Coelophysoidea — discuss here, draft of merged article is here Done
• Maniraptoriformes into Coelurosauria - discuss here Done
• Pennaraptora into Maniraptora Done
• Averostra and Neotheropoda into Theropoda - discuss Talk:Theropoda#Merge Proposals for Neotheropoda and Averostra Done
• Avetheropoda and Orionides into Tetanurae - discuss here Done
• Khebbashia and Rebbachisaurinae into Rebbachisauridae - discuss here Done
• Cerapoda into Neornithischia Done
• Flagellicaudata into Diplodocoidea - discuss here Done
• Eutyrannosauria into Tyrannosauroidea - discuss here Done
• Gravisauria into Sauropoda Done
• Furileusauria and Carnotaurini into Carnotaurinae - draft of merged article is here, discuss here Done
• Plateosauria into Sauropodomorpha Done
• Abelisauroidea and Ceratosauridae into Ceratosauria - draft of merged article is here, discuss here Done
• Avebrevicauda, Pygostylia, and Ornithothoraces into Avialae - discuss here Merge for Avebrevicauda done, other merges aborted
• Neovenatoridae into Allosauroidea Done
• Allosauroidea into Carnosauria - discuss here, draft of the merged article is here Done
• Stegosauridae and Huayangosauridae into Stegosauria - discuss at here Done
• Troodontinae into Troodontidae Done

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It is kinda sad for me seeing these clade article go away, such as with the recently deceased Cerapoda. :( Personally, I like the clade articles, even if they tend to be shorter articles, as I enjoy navigating up and down different evolutionary trees, clicking the different wikilinks and seeing where they go. But I guess I am in the minority here. Oh well. Cougroyalty (talk) 15:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

They're generally quite short and most of the ones proposed for merging here have no unique content that wouldn't be covered on the page of the parent clade. Frankly, it makes it easier to expand them without feeling like the added information is redundant. The Morrison Man (talk) 19:05, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

You can still do that. The clades that have been merged still feature in the infoboxes, there will just be fewer of them now. This is just for consistency, article cleanliness, ease of navigation, and to more easily account for changes in the literature. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I guess I just feel that the Cerapoda article was fine, even though it was short. And now it just seems a bit weird and unwieldy having two paragraphs about Cerapoda dumped into the Neornithischia article. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Cheers. Cougroyalty (talk) 22:22, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Taxoboxes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was no support for changing the structure of automatic taxoboxes. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 22:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

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Is there any reason to continue to display any of the articles being merged in taxoboxes of subordinate taxa? Plantdrew (talk) 21:29, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the taxa are still valid, so they should be present. The consensus was simply that they aren't notable enough on their own to warrant an article. All of these clades still exist and are acknowledged by the scientific literature, and so a complete treatment of these groups should at least mention them. Infoboxes are the most convenient place to do this because that infrastructure is already in place for WP:PAL. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Supproposal, Suggested Guidelines

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was a consensus to avoid creating specific rigid guidelines and to assess any possible merge on a case-by-case basis. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 17:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

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@FunkMonk: by your suggestion, I've used some of the decisions we've come to a consensus on to suggest some possible guidelines going forward. These were arrived at simply by looking at commonalities in the suggestions already made, so most of the above suggested merges already meet these criteria.

Terminal taxa (i.e. taxa with no non-genus daughter taxa)

1. No articles for taxa smaller than family-level, unless the clade has at least 10 genera and publications regarding it to the exclusion of its parent taxon (I.e. Chasmosaurinae, Centrosaurinae, Microraptoria, etc) or if the parent taxon is uncertain (i.e. Halszkaraptorinae, Unenlagiinae, etc)
2. If a taxon smaller than the family-level has a sister taxon that has been merged up, it should also be merged up (i.e. Carnotaurinae with Majungasaurinae, Albertosaurinae with Tyrannosaurinae)
3. Family-level articles for taxa with fewer than 10 genera are merged up unless there is a compelling morphological distinction for keeping the article unique or a significant amount of literature that addresses the taxon (i.e. Scansoriopterygidae, Proceratosauridae, etc)

Nodes (i.e. taxa with daughter taxa that are higher than genus)

1. A node with fewer than 10-12 confidently assigned daughter taxa should be merged to the next node up (i.e. Averostra, Cerapoda) unless it has at least 2 non-genus daughter taxa which both meet the criteria for their own articles (i.e. Megalosauroidea, Tetanurae)

--A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:15, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

That seems quite sensible to me. Should be consolidated with or replace some of this currently on the project page:[1] FunkMonk (talk) 09:42, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we should consider merging on a case-by-case basis without the "10 genera or publications rule", especially for families. There are plenty of small and obscure families which nevertheless have reliable distinction (Piatnitzkysauridae, for example), and the 10 publication rule is difficult to judge for recently-named clades, even if I consider it a moot point in most cases. Small and recently-named groups like Jinguofortisidae or (for a non-dinosaur example) Aphanosauria would have defied both rules in the first year of their existence, and yet they're worth keeping because they seem to have clear evolutionary significance. Using an arbitrary number as an assumed cut-off as a specific rule or guideline will cause more problems than solutions, in my opinion. NGPezz (talk) 17:42, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, these are only suggestions that I've drawn up after considering commonalities between the proposals that have already been made. I have no strong opinions on the matter and only offered these as suggestions for considerations. I think there should be some guidelines in place just for the sake of project continuity, but their exact nature is up to whoever can make the most convincing case in my opinion. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Seconding this sentiment I think. In general, I think its a case-by-case basis, with really two exceptions. *Most of the time* nodes should be merged up, as there is not much that can be discussed about the junction between two groups beyond just it being the junction to two groups. Nodes also typically receive less literature devoted to them. *Most of the time* families (or equivalent -idea clades) should be kept as separate, since the use of the rank shows that there is generally something relevant about that group that makes them distinct morphologically, phylogenetically, or biogeographically. Beyond that the only guideline I see are those that come from Wiki itself, about notability (clades with history and many studies like Coelurosauria and Carnosauria) and size (splitting Ornithopoda at a subclade rather than only having articles for Hypsilophodontidae, Rhabdodontidae, Elasmaria, Dryosauridae, and Hadrosauridae). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 21:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Copying my feedback on the proposed guidelines from above:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to give feedback, but I do not like the guidelines. I think the logic behind these merging decisions is very case by case and building a cage of precedent with such specific rules as numbers of taxa and publications is going to lead to nothing but trouble down the line. I've been advocating for the merging of subfamily and tribe level articles on the understanding they could be considered for reinstatement in the future if someone finds enough to write about them and these guidelines would make that in direct opposition to policy. Rule two in particular I don't like - how much unique material there is to say about a given group is a key consideration and there's no saying that will always necessarily be the same for two sister taxa. Dipldocinae and Apatosaurinae is an already cited example that should, in my opinion, break this rule, as the latter is commented on far more for its large scale taxonomy and anatomical distinctiveness. The third rule seems redundant as it includes an exception based on an entirely undefined level of "compelling morphological distinction" which just brings it back to "use judgement on a case by case basis" instead of having a guideline. I personally would prefer not creating guidelines at all but if we do I do not like this first draft of them. The node rule seems irrelevant to our concern; Maginocephalia and Averostra both have two subclades considered worthy of articles but they have each received opposition here; and if you think Marginocephalia is article worthy, then Cerapoda also meets this rule, despite being used as a counterexample in the rule itself. What matters is whether the combination of those subclades adds up to a clade that is worth discussing as its own article, which doesn't seem to correlate to the criteria of this rule to me.

Instead of firm rules based on arbitrary criteria I would prefer an explanation behind the general philosophy of what we're looking for when we decide on these merges/splits to act as guidelines. I think this would achieve the desired role of having guidelines without restricting our choises using inflexible rules that can't accomodate the actual motivating factors behind these decisions. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 21:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zahrisaurus (2nd nomination)

Malkani dinosaurs, again. (See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 14#Muzaffarabadmachli, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 16#Deletion requests of Malkani taxa, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 35#Taxa named by Malkani.) Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of Brachiosaurus Replica

I've started a discussion at the above article, a synthesis of the O'Hare and outdoors Field Museum mounts, to see if we can come to a consensus about status before too much time is put into it and whether deletion or merging (to Brachiosaurus#Cultural significance) is preferred. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:19, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Informal reassessment of Thescelosaurus

Hi, I don't normally participate in dinosaur articles, but other members have brought up the idea of bringing older dinosaur GA/FA articles to modern quality standards without taking them to reassessments formally, so here's the link for participation: Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Article workshop#Thescelosaurus. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:02, 26 October 2024 (UTC)