ContentCreationBOT

A reply to "Expert opinion needed"

Hi Thaddeus, I read your post on the Project Gastropods talk page and I just wanted to say something about these Sepkoski lists... User JoJan and I struggled for a long time in 2008 to clean up and fix up a simple list of "Prehistoric gastropod genera" generated from one of these lists. One problem that we perceive as living mollusk researchers is that a considerable number of the genera are still extant, some of them very much so. We think that calling them "prehistoric" gives a misleading impression. We finally came up with "List of marine gastropod genera in the fossil record" as a title, which I see has now been changed back to "List of prehistoric marine gastropod genera" by User:Abyssal. Invertzoo (talk) 21:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC) And which has now has been changed once again to the "fossil record" version of the titlenote. Invertzoo (talk) 21:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank for the reply. I wonder is there really a reason to call an article "List of prehistoric starfish," for example, instead of just "List of starfish?" --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Technically these are lists of organisms found in the fossil records. This is bulky nomenclature for a general encyclopedia. I have glanced through all of the lists, and, as I said before, they all contain numerous extant species, not just extant species, but common and well-known extant species, making the current name, using "prehistoric," confusing. I opt for the bulky title over the inaccurate one. The simple title "list of starfish," for some lists, will confuse the fact that some common or very well-known extant species are not well-represented in the fossil record. This may give confusion to the reader: if this is a list of this members of this taxon, why isn't something well-known included?

The lists need to indicate that species found in the fossil record may include extant species. I don't know how to word it well, but it needs to be worded for the general reader. Also, the taxonomy sections are too long. I suggested a streamlined version somewhere.

Wikipedia has some very nice mollusc articles, by the way. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the general sentiments that something extant can't be prehistoric. Triops cancriformis is an extant species that's significantly over 200 million years old. It saw the dinosaurs in their cradle and their death-bed. It saw the first birds take flight and the first flowers blossom. It saw African primates form bands and tame fire. It was there when the last mammoth fell and the first organism trod upon the surface of the moon. The idea that such an entity is not "prehistoric" just because it hasn't yet expired seems laughable in the face of its history and accomplishments. Abyssal (talk) 20:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

A few points:

I think what you are talking about Abyssal with Triops is something that is usually (loosely, non-scientifically) called a "living fossil". No doubt there are a few genera on the gastropod list that might meet the very loose popular definition of "living fossil", but they are few.

There are numerous genera in the gastropod list that appeared in relatively recent geological periods, such as the Pleistocene, which didn't end until 12,000 years ago. Those genera are still the same now and so are 99% of the species.

Biologists and paleontologists don't usually use the word "prehistoric" much if at all, they say, fossil or living species, extinct or extant. If they want to be more precise they might say a "species from the Pliocene" or whatever. I think really only anthropologists use "prehistoric", and even then, not that much.

These list articles, like it or not, are science articles, and so the terminology used in the titles should be acceptable in a scientific sense. "Prehistoric" is not really a good word in this scientific (biological) context, it even sounds a bit amateurish when used for these list articles, because it is not really a scientific word, biologically speaking. Maybe it was OK 100 years ago...

Even in the popular meaning of the word, "Prehistoric" when applied to animals, well, to the general public it means extinct and exotic because you cannot see living ones like it now. I have shells from my local beach that are 12,000 years old, from the Ice Age and people can hardly believe it, because they are the exact same species that live there now, and they look identical except they are faded and a bit discolored and have no periostracum or ligament. If I said, "Wanna see some prehistoric shells?" my friends would feel gypped if I showed the shells to them, because they are as mundane as can be, no difference at all! They are all species that evolved quite recently.

Best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Given the above, it is probably best to rename these articles from "prehistoric X" to "X in the fossil record". It is worth a few extra words to avoid ambiguity. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Good points, I didn't really think about Pleistocene stuff, being a dinosaur guy and all. I agree that the word usage is a bit informal, but that is what the interested public would call it and it's not inaccurate, so I'm still fine with it. If you think we really need to change them, I'm definitely open to it. Thad's suggestion is good. But maybe "List of fossil XXXX genera" would be better as it shaves off a few words. I don't care a whole lot, though, like I said, I think they're passable names but if they can be improved then that is what we should do. Abyssal (talk) 02:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure no one said something extant can't be in the fossil record--conceptually that's no part of paleontology. What I said was somewhat the opposite: "The lists need to indicate that species found in the fossil record may include extant species." The rock record contains untold numbers of fossils of extant organisms. I want the lists to explicitly state that the organisms are not all extinct.

I'm for accuracy in the list titles. A "List of marine gastropods in the fossil record" is long, but it removes ambiguity about what should be and is on the list. I don't like "prehistoric," and I couldn't even find a definition that coincides with how it is used here. But it may be common in literature for the general audience. I would rather not use it because I am unsure of its technical definition.

Even I can feel cheated when people show me fossils that are not rocks in the purely common usage of the word. ::::--69.225.5.4 (talk) 06:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Abyssal (talk) 14:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

List of marine gastropod genera in the fossil record

Hi Abyssal, I just wanted to say that there was a very good reason why the list had that title rather than the shorter "List of prehistoric marine gastropod genera" which is more or less how it started out. "List of prehistoric gastropod genera" I think was how it began. The thing is, that is that a very large number of the genera listed are still extant, still living and doing very well. Almost every genus of marine gastropod that's even been found in the Pleistocene is still alive and kicking. It's not at all like dinosaur genera, which are all extinct and so are genuinely "prehistoric". If it's OK with you I may change the title back again: User:JoJan and I spent quite some time discussing and refining to get to that title. But I wanted to let you weigh in on this if you would like to. Thanks and best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

NO!!! Actually, I'm fine with it. Abyssal (talk) 22:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will take your no as a yes?! That was a joke, right?? Thanks. Invertzoo (talk) 22:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was screwin' witcha. Abyssal (talk) 22:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, shame on you Abyssal, that was Abysmal... ha ha ha... Invertzoo (talk) 23:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason to not use the even shorter options of List of gastropod genera or even List of gastropods? --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Too be honest, these Seplowski lists are not very useful. We seriously considered deleting our list article altogether about a year ago, but instead we did a huge amount of work to turn it into something vaguely respectable-looking, but still I don't think it is a very useful list at all. It absolutely cannot be called a "list of gastropod genera", and it certainly cannot be called a "list of gastropods". It is not even remotely complete in either of those ways and is unlikely to ever become so. This is why:

The list contains only those marine gastropod genera that have been found in the fossil record. It includes no land or freshwater gastropod genera whatsoever, of which there are a very large number. It includes no sea slug genera whatsoever, of which there are many hundreds. It includes no species of any kind whatsoever. Many gastropod genera have been found in the fossil record, but countless thousands of minute or fragile shelled genera have never been found as fossils and probably never will be. Most genera that have no shells left no trace whatsoever in the fossil record. Even in terms of larger, more solidly shelled species, only a tiny fraction of all the genera that ever lived have been found in the fossil record, which is of course extremely patchy and incomplete by its very nature.

The list we have does however include a number of bogus genera which were first described as gastropods, but which are no longer considered to be gastropods, and which in many cases are not even considered to be mollusks!!

The list is arranged alphabetically, not by family. All in all it is not very useful at all to anyone who is interested in living gastropods. I am not even sure how useful it is to paleontologists who study gastropods.

I imagine many of these same objections apply to the other group lists from this same source. Sorry, but there you go... best, Invertzoo (talk) 18:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Useful commentary. The intention was, at some point, to only list valid species from the paleontology database, but use Sepkowski for age ranges. However, the lists appear to include all species from Sepkowski, even though Sepkowski has since been updated.

Sepkowski does contain only marine taxa. I thought the taxa were being pulled from paleoDB, though, not Sepkowski, so I did not catch that the species on the lists were only marine; also I only checked the chitons and some of the crustaceans to any extent, both are outside my area, and my focus is marine, so, I'd miss that the lists were only marine. This is why these lists require your input, Invertzoo!

The bogus gastropods, and mollusks, would these then be still listed as valid species in the paleontology database? --69.225.5.4 (talk) 18:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I personally had no idea of any of this. Remember, I didn't generate the lists and the bot is only filing them in. To answer the specific question, it would be listed as invalid if it 1) has been renamed\found be an error\etc. - I.E. if the taxa itself is considered invalid or 2) it was demoted to a sub-genus. However, if the genus was moved to another class bu not renamed, it would be listed as valid. I do not know if this is what was intended by Abyssal or not - either he didn't consider it or he didn't feel it was a problem, as I was never informed of this possibility.

If stub creation ever takes place, the stubs wouldn't suffer in this way, as all classification data would be coming from paleodb and not be reliant on an existing Wikipedia table. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Remember I am only talking about the gastropod genera list that was created in 2007. I don't know much about the current plans for these other lists, but some of the same objections apply I imagine. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yah, the other lists most likely suffer from the same deficiencies. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I looked at all of the lists that ThaddeusB posted at the RFBA. Just glancing they all had extant taxa. I then looked at the two crustacean lists more closely. They both have extant species, a couple of species I suspect are problematic-but I didn't research the organisms, as I was working on the algae. I checked the chiton list, because it was posted as an example/trial/something; there were enough problems that I sorted the list by age to spot issues, and found a well-known extant genus that is used as a model of a particular evolutionary morphology in extant chitons, so I stopped looking at that point.

I imagine the problems you raise are issues with the lists in general. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 06:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Is database import a good idea?

I'm not sure whether posting here is going to help or just add to the wikidrama, but to briefly summarize my reluctance about database-driven data imports:

• At least for plants and protists (and fungi, I'm pretty sure), taxonomy is in enough of a state of flux that it is hard for software to make sense of how the database's classification matches the system(s) which are used elsewhere on wikipedia. For the lists currently under consideration, "taxonomy" is mostly whether to split/lump each genus and whether each genus is on the correct list, although I will note that the lists would be more useful if they had some organization beyond just long and alphabetical (whether taxonomic, or by habitat, or by time period, or all of the above, is not clear to me)
• Even if the import process "succeeds", you don't get structure, usually don't get style, and don't get any prose (structure, style, and prose are taken from Wikipedia:Featured list criteria which of course is an eventual goal, so a bot can't be expected to provide them, but the question is whether the bot takes us towards that or away from that)
• We've only heard from about three people (that I've noticed - Abyssal, 69.225.5.4, and Invertzoo) with any significant experience editing animal articles. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that whoever frequents the wikiprojects is indifferent.

On the plus side:

• I like the footnotes for the given sources. In addition to just general goodness, this is quite helpful to the human editor who wants to work on the list later.
• I think Abyssal and ThaddeusB have been doing a good job at soliciting opinions and trying to avoid pitfalls as they are identified.

My overall reaction is to defer to those who are more involved with animals than I. Kingdon (talk) 18:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input!

You are right, of course, that taxonomy is always in flux. However, that would equally affect a human editor or an automated editor. It also doesn't play a big role here as 1) the stated purpose of the lists is to include anything that was once under the given classification, even if it no longer is and 2) the bot 9as currently designed) doesn't try to determine correct classification - it only fills in the missing data in the human generated tables. Of course point 2) could be either a strength or a weakness depending on one's POV.

As a minor point, in the BRFA at least one other person with familiarity with animal articles contributed to the discussion. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think there is potential for writing species articles that contain the taxonomy, and the natural range, maybe the invasive range, from databases, including plant articles. I would like input from editors outside animals, and the only contributions we are actively seeking are from marine animal editors. I hope you'll continue to watch the discussion and contribute, Kingdon. Yes, the wikiproject editors seem indifferent. But I like to edit particular articles, maybe these are not areas that have a lot of interested editors on wikipedia. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 06:08, 4 October 2009 (UTC)