Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark stain


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. ✗ plicit  00:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Dark stain

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This seems like a very minor aspect of the Burgess Shale that does not really warrant a standalone article. It would probably be better off merged into either Burgess Shale or Fossils of the Burgess Shale (probably the latter would be best). The title "Dark stain" is also pretty generic, so I'm not sure that it would be a useful redirect. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  03:49, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science and Organisms. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm no paleontologist, but my understanding from a brief Google search and from reading this article is that dark stains are associated with the fossilization process, not particularly anything specific to fossils of the Burgess Shale, although according to this article, it appears to be a fossilization artifact commonly found in fossils of the Burgess Shale (but also found in other fossils as well). RecycledPixels (talk) 05:22, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a barely remarked upon taphonomic feature at best, not something worth an entire article. I could see a merge/redirect to taphonomy as well. A search for "dark stain" on scholar brings up results of mostly no relevance to paleontology. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:27, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. Google Scholar is what I used in my brief search, except I used "dark stain" (in quotes) plus the word "fossil".  The results that came up primarily had to do with morphology of fossil specimens, and used the term dark stain as though someone reading the article ought to know what a dark stain was.   To me, that means that there should be an encyclopedia article about it, because after reading it, I now know a little more about what it is.  But what I didn't come across was any sign that it was exclusive to fossils of the Burgess Shale.   RecycledPixels (talk) 05:34, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I checked that as well, and many of the references (once you go deep enough) are clearly false positives that don't have anything to do with the "dark stain" fossil concept. "dark stain" isn't really a specific phenomenon, but is merely descriptive for a region of a fossil that is more darkly coloured than the rest of the fossil or the surrounding matrix. There is very little meaningful that can be said about the concept because "dark region of a fossil" is so general. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:39, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I went back through the search again, and after looking at them harder, I agree with you, that the examples I glanced at were referring to stained areas a specific fossils, and not a common jargon to refer to the specific process.  Striking the keep for now, thanks for the quick responses.  RecycledPixels (talk) 05:49, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete. It's already mentioned as a very, very minor detail over at Fossils of the Burgess Shale and doesn't really warrant it's own article in terms of WP:GNG, especially since it becomes WP:JARGON for a specific field. Dark stain is too generic of a term to use as a redirect, so delete. KoA (talk) 13:33, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete as an unusable search term for a redirect, and as stated above, already covered as a small detail in the Burgess Shale article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete/merge per KoA but it could be good to add the article's image with very brief info about this to Fossils of the Burgess Shale.
 * Prototyperspective (talk) 09:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.