Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Dinosaur collaboration

The Dinosaur collaboration is a coordinated effort by WikiProject Dinosaurs to improve Wikipedia's dinosaur-related content. However, being a member of WikiProject Dinosaurs is not a prerequisite for participation in this collaboration. All Wikipedians, regardless of their level of expertise on the subject, are welcome to contribute. Aside from the main benefit of creating better dinosaur articles on Wikipedia, this initiative will hopefully a) Attract new editors to work on the Project; b) Improve the writing skills of existing editors; and c) Demonstrate the value of collaboration on Wikipedia.

It was originally activated in June 2006 and coordinated by and collaborations work chosen every fortnight until October 2006. Six articles out of the eleven worked on through this period, ultimately achieved Featured Status, and another two achieved Good Article status. There was a short hiatus before reactivation in January 2007 with coordinating, with collaborations chosen monthly until winding down in May 2008. A further five out of thirteen, achieved Featured Status. Voting was reactivated in December 2010 for the selection of a collaboration, in January 2011. The variable pace of improvement, plus greater time required to improve articles to a Good or Featured state, indicates that selecting collaborations monthly, will result in us cycling through them with only a minority reaching GA. Hence as of February 2011, a new collaboration will be automatically chosen once the current one achieves Good Status (a thoroughly worked over Good Article with a strict reviewer is often close to Featured Status, so editors can either keep working to shove the first article across the line or start on the second one and take a breather). This only lasted one collaboration (Apatosaurus, which did reach FA status), before becoming inactive. It was revived again in March 2018.

Nomination procedure
A list of past collaborations can be viewed here.

Any user may nominate an article to be collaborated upon. Nominees should:


 * Be about any dinosaur or directly dinosaur-related topic.
 * Need a significant amount of work in terms of content, organization, prose, etc.
 * Not be in any edit conflict or be under protection.

If you would like to nominate an article, please add it at the bottom of the list of nominees along with a short note describing why you think it should be chosen.

For Nominators: Please use the following code when nominating an article.

===ARTICLE NAME=== Nominated MONTH DAY, YEAR;

Support:
 * 1) (sign with four tildes)

Comments:
 * (put your reason for nomination, sign again)

For Voters: Please use the following code when voting to support an article.

#

Nominations...
''Please list nominees below using the code laid out in the above section. Newer nominees should be placed on the bottom of the list. Feel free to vote for as many nominees as you wish, but only once per nomination. Please only vote to indicate support, do not vote in the negative. If you like, add a comment in the comment's section under nomination, or on the collaboration talk page. Articles will remain on the list for three "bites" of the collaboration cherry, after which time they will be archived. For the current collaboration, see the template at the top of the page.''

The next Dinosaur collaboration will be chosen when the current nomination becomes a Good Article Nominee

Origin of Birds (1 vote)
Nominated 13 January, 2011;

Support:
 * 1) Spawn Man (talk) 10:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) Logosvenator wikiensis (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments:
 * I think this is a pretty important article which obviously has a lot of information on it and is also very important. It has a lot of info already on it from previous efforts at fixing it up and I think all of this combines into a good mixture which shouldn't be too hard to bring up to at least a GA standard, if not to an FA.
 * I agree with everything you said. Here are some possible topics to be added to the article just off the top of my head.
 * Fringe theories
 * What makes a dinosaur a bird
 * Cranial kinesis
 * Early modern birds (Vegavis, Waimanu, etc;) Logosvenator wikiensis (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Torvosaurus (4 votes)
Nominated November 4th, 2013;

Support: Comments:
 * 1) Raptormimus456 (talk) 20:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 2) PW102281 (talk) 15:06, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 3)  ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  02:06, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * 4)  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 00:00, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Torvosaurus as a genus is a very interesting animal, and I'd love to see it go to FA status one day. It's an article about a lesser known species (not one of the "Big 7" (those being T.rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Apatosaurus and Spinosaurus), it's already pretty nice and overall it's a nice-looking article. Now if only it could get FA...Raptormimus456 (talk) 20:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd love to see all of Megalosauroidea achieve at least GA status, and Torvosaurus is a good start for getting Megalosauridae itself into good shape, being a genus very well known from skeletal material, and providing an exemplary introduction to megalosaurids and their typical body plan. ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  02:06, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ceratosaurus and Allosaurus are both FAs now so it'd be nice to complete the Morrison trinity.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 00:00, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I suspect Torvosaurus might get a slight make over or something, or at least more known parts, since a newly discovered pretty complete specimen (which was commercially available for a while I think) has just been placed in a museum. So I would personally find it a bit shaky until that is published. FunkMonk (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Might not be the most urgent one in terms of importance, but defenitely very popular. On the other hand, it is not that huge a project, and could be done more quickly than the articles we collaborated on recently. And seeing that there is some interest in working on this, why not. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 03:01, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Triceratops (5 votes)
Nominated April 2nd, 2019;

Support: Comments:
 * 1) --Jens Lallensack (talk) 03:01, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * 2) -- Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 03:28, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * 3) --Audrey.m.horn (talk) 22:02, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 4) --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 21:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 5) --Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Just to have more alternatives to vote on, and to finally have an old FA to enter the competition, as was suggested in the WikiProject discussions. Triceratops is an 2007 FA of obvious importance, which needs a good deel of rework to get it up to the current standards. The goal would be to get it through peer review and, ideally, have it on the main page for a second time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 03:01, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * One of the most important dinosaur articles we have, I definitely support the idea. Plus all of those old invalid species look like a fun challenge to sort through!  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 03:28, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure how much I'll be able to contribute, but it may be fun to try out copyediting and (possibly?) reviewing. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 21:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Certainly needs some updating and cleaning up. I worked on it initiially and have the Dodson book somewhere (have been rearranging house so alot of books in boxes...) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Pinging, who just gave the article some overhaul: How much work would you say is still needed here? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:55, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * There are four points where attention is needed. Firstly, the description is still insufficient. This is not easy to solve as a recent systematic osteology is lacking. Ostrom (1986) is outdated. Forster (1990) might be better; I haven't got the text myself. Secondly, all the (Marsh) species should be given a few sentences each. This is easily done and indeed fun. A third problem is the relationship between the two valid species, T. horridus and T. prorsus. Throughout the article, it is assumed that the differences between them are negligible and can basically be disregarded. Scannella's dissertation of 2015 indicates that instead a complex process of anagenesis took place, based on much improved stratigraphic data. Both the anagenesis and the stratigraphy would have to be treated in our article. This problem is of course intertwined with the Torosaurus can of worms, the fourth and most fundamental issue. Should we accept that Torosaurus is Triceratops, a complete alteration of the text is needed. E.g. we would have to describe the toromorph: "Triceratops had an enormously elongated skull, with a straight, long and wide frill, pierced by transversely oriented oval fenestrae". Scannella in 2015 further complicated matters by concluding that Torosaurus was probably either a first anagenetic stage or an early split-off.--MWAK (talk) 06:04, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * How about Forster 1996? I have access to it through the Wikipedia library if you need it (it seems to describe the difference between the species, which the Wikipedia article is lacking). If Forster 1990 is needed, we can probably get it through WP:RX. As for Torosaurus, I think we should keep it separate as long as there is a dispute... FunkMonk (talk) 09:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Keeping them separate is indeed highly advisable :o). Forster (1996) is very useful for a historical overview of the species but only highlights salient features of the skull. It would be nice to describe Triceratops as more than just a generic chasmosaurine in its postcrania.--MWAK (talk) 06:03, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I've requested Forster 1990 here (along with some other papers I needed for Kosmoceratops), I'll send it to you if I get it... FunkMonk (talk) 07:59, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi, I was just sent Forster 1990, if you send me a mail I can send the pdf to you. FunkMonk (talk) 08:48, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Excellent! I've reactivated my EmailUser feature.--MWAK (talk) 10:18, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Tangling out all the old invalid Triceratops species has been something I've been wanting to do for ages, so I'd gladly contribute in expanding that front.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 17:16, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding the osteology: Why not rely on Dodson et al. 2004 ("The Dinosauria", chapter "Ceratopsidae")? It contains a lot of relevant detail on Triceratops osteology, what else do we need to know? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:08, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * As well, a new paper was announced in the abstracts that mentions a triceratops bonebed and osteology, so maybe it'll be helpful, maybe not. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 19:10, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I fear, I pre-empted you a bit, Lusotitan... Still some species left, though. I'll try basing the description on The Dinosauria then. The problem is that in the entire chapter Triceratops is apparently used as the default, without the benefit of all the discoveries since 2003.--MWAK (talk) 07:15, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Rajasaurus (1 vote)
Nominated August 3, 2022;

Support: Comments:
 * 1) —-Aaa232355 (talk) 10:05 3 August 2022
 * I would just be incredibly joyed to see that an Indian Dinosaur reached Featured status.

Articles for promotion and maintenance
''If you think an article is good enough to be a Featured Article Candidate, feel free to nominate it. However, it is recommended that you have the article peer reviewed first. Peer reviewed articles are generally more polished and are often more likely to receive votes of support on the FAC page. If you would like to discuss a particular article before sending it to be reviewed, bring it up on the talk page of the article in question, of this page, or the WikiProject Dinosaurs talk page. If you do send an article for peer review or to the FAC page, please let us know by adding it to the appropriate list below so that we can support it!''

''In terms of criteria consider proximity to FAC candicacy in terms of work required + personal preference + global importance WRT other dinos or FA list and wikipedia in general, in whatever ratios you wish... ''

Potential future nominations
Below is a list of articles about genera that have enough coverage in the literature to warrant possible nomination:


 * Scipionyx - Recently got its monograph published, much more will probably not be known about it until other specimens are found.
 * Giraffatitan
 * Eoraptor - Just got a monograph, so could be expanded a lot.
 * Coelophysis - Well known, lots of information, main problem would be whether Megapnosaurus is sunk within it, but that'll only mean expansion, not cutting.
 * Protoceratops - Much seems to be known about it, so surprising that it is so short.
 * Maiasaura - Same as above.
 * Camarasaurus - Very important sauropod, but still needs work
 * Microraptor - might also be close, and very important
 * Goyocephale - not overly well known, but probably the most stable pachycephalosaur, with the validity of many genera and included species of most other pachycephalosaurs controversial.
 * Australovenator - plenty of free media and text to use.
 * Brontosaurus - Very important sauropod, major historical impact, still needs more work
 * Theropoda - Most popular of the 7 major groups
 * Sauropoda - Second most popular of the 7 major groups, might be nice to have some big group articles, since Ceratopsia failed GAR
 * Utahraptor - Also very popular
 * Kentrosaurus - Appears to be the second most well known stegosaur
 * Sinosauropteryx - Perhaps one of our most important articles, as it was the first non-avian dinosaur with evidence of feathers.

Old FAs for improvement

 * Styracosaurus - Could be improved to meet current standards.