Talk:Alvarezsauroidea

Gallimimus wikipedista.

Yesterday a paper on the growth and miniaturization of alvarezsauroids was published. I wanted someone to edit this page based on the article. Unfortunately I cannot edit it, as I am out of time. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.013 Gallimimus wikipedista. (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

Support: This merge proposal is part of a broad project in WP:DINO to consolidate as many of the superfluous clades as possible (WP:REDUNDANT, WP:NOTE) and make coverage of dinosaurs much more streamlined. To this end, Alvarezsauridae is an ideal candidate to merge into Alvarezsauroidea for the following reasons:

1. Most of the content is redundant. The majority of the Alvarezsoauridea article is about alvarezsaurids.
2. Most of the scientific literature on these animals treats Alvarezsauroidea as a single whole, rather than two groups distinct enough to warrant separate publications for any given issue.
3. Neither article is very long by itself.
4. Neither clade is distinct enough in terms of morphology to warrant individual treatment.

A mock up of the merged article can be seen here in my sandbox. Comments are welcome. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: I've commented on the broader discussion on dinosaur article mergers, and I disagree with the philosophy that the family article is what should be merged whenever their content overlaps with their surrounding group. It is true that most of the information on Alvarezsauroidea is talking about Alvarezsauridae, so there is a lot of superfluous text between the two articles. But I think that Alvarezsauroidea can be reworked into a state where that is no longer the case.

To go to point 2, the scientific literature on Alvarezsauridae (~600 articles on google scholar) far outweighs Alvarezsauroidea (~200 articles), so I would argue that Alvarezsauridae is the fundamental unit paleontologists refer to when they talk about alvarezsaurs. The idae vs oidea distinction has only really become apparent since 2010 or so, with the broader group referring to all the taxa that are "normal" enough to not be covered by the family. Shishugounykus, Bannykus, Xiyunykus, Haplocheirus, etc. There's a lot that can be said here: what traits allow us to relate these taxa to alvarezsaurids? How did their biology, ecology, or anatomy differ from the particularly specialized subgroup which they are kin with? We should approach this like how we approach Tyrannosauroidea and Tyrannosauridae. I think points 1 and 3 would be nullified after a rework like this.

One could emphasize point 4 as a counterargument: some non-alvarezsaurids clearly fall into the "alvarezsaur" conception, like Patagonykus and Bonapartenykus, so the distinction is meaningless. However, it should be reminded that those taxa were classified within Alvarezsauridae by pretty much every study until very recently. From what I can tell, they were only considered non-alvarezsaurids as recently as 2018, and only because Xu et al. (2018) used a very narrow definition for the family (Alvarezsaurus + Mononykus + all descendants of their common ancestor). That definition appears to be novel, the closest I can find appears to be the definition provided by Novas (1996), except his definition also specifically includes Patagonykus as a third defining alvarezsaurid. I don't really think that there's a strongly-supported consensus stating that Patagonykus is not an alvarezsaurid, and likewise I still perceive a clear dividing line between alvarezsaurids and other alvarezsauroids. A clear enough line that point 4 diminishes and each category warrants an article. NGPezz (talk) 17:32, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

On point 2, the decision to merge Alvarezsauridae into Alvarezsauroidea is a functional consideration. The alternative would be to merge Alvarezsauroidea into Maniraptora and leave Alvarezsauridae as is, which would be needlessly convoluted and would split up a monophyletic group that shares a common name, so the dissymmetry between the published literature would be in favor of the merge, but practical considerations led to my suggestion of a merge in the reverse direction.

I would also suggest that the dichotomy between Tyrannosauridae and Tyrannosauroidea is not analogous for two reasons. Firstly, there is only a single family in Alvarezsauroidea vs 2-3 in Tyrannosauroidea which would each get their own articles. Secondly, the number of non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroid genera is higher than the number of tyrannosaurid genera, while the reverse is true in the case of Alvarezsauridae vs. Alvarezsauroidea.

I would be amenable to a rework of Alvarezsauroidea as opposed to a merge, and I don't think that executing this merge would necessarily rule that out. The state of things as they are (with two woefully incomplete articles that really only cover one of the two clades very thoroughly) is not acceptable for the purposes of an encyclopedia in my opinion. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 22:23, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I see a false dichotomy in the implication that a merge is necessary somewhere, with the only question being which page to eliminate via merging. I'm talking about a third alternative: just don't do any merging in this case, that's my preference at least. And I don't think that the small number of non-alvarezsaurid alvarezsauroids (relative to non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroids) is relevant to this discussion. The anatomical 'distance' between the base of Alvarezsauroidea and the base of Alvarezsauridae can be equated with the same gap in tyrannosaurs, so in terms of raw potential, the articles for Alvarezsauroidea and Tyrannosauroidea are more similar than they seem. It's not the number of taxa covered by a page which defines whether it's notable. Pinging @Cougroyalty:, who shared similar sentiments on the broader discussion on merging dinosaur articles. And for your last point, this site is full of woefully incomplete articles, that's an incentive to expand articles rather than to condense them. Would you merge every genus-level stub article into a more complete article that sits above it in a taxonomy template? No, you wouldn't and shouldn't, and I don't see how this is any different. If you find a paucity of content disturbing, then add more content. NGPezz (talk) 00:54, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand that a merge is not mandatory. When I illustrated the differences between the two possible merges, that was to address your point that Alvarezsauridae is more frequently used in the literature than Alvarezsauroidea and is thus the "fundamental unit" that paleontologists use.

I don't think the same logic for this proposed merge applies to genera for a few reasons. Firstly, it is the dominant practice in WP:PAL for every genus to warrant its own article, and I don't think these proposed merges are any reason to change that. Genera have unique traits that would be difficult if not impossible to convey in the article for their parent taxon. A short article for a genus is different from a short article for the family and superfamily for a few reasons. Genera are much more stable in their composition than either families or superfamilies and are thus much less subject to change. This means their articles are much more stable. Second, a genus will always have diagnosable characteristics in the literature whereas several of these higher-order clades are node-based and thus will feature very little unique content by the nature of the definition of these clades.

I agree that the small number of non-alvarezsaurid alvarezsauroid taxa on its own is insufficient to warrant a merge, but it is a contributing factor to this rationale. The simply nested internal topology of the clade is another reason. Consolidation of the relevant information for the convenience of a more casual reader is another possible reason. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 06:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: Just adding my voice, saying that I don't see the need to merge the two. Both articles are actually surprisingly long on their own. Both seem sufficiently notable, even if they are mostly similar. And having both provides a place for the discussion of the non-alvarezsaurid alvarezsauroid taxa. Cougroyalty (talk) 16:57, 29 April 2024 (UTC)