Ryan Schwark

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Taxobox images for fossil genera

Hey there. First of all welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for deciding to contribute. Been seeing that you've been uploading a lot of your images from the AMNH to Wikimedia and subsequently been adding them to the pages for various fossil taxa. Now far as I can tell some of these are quite good changes, especially when being in higher quality than the images beforehand. However please do note that some are less clear improvements and should be considered more carefully whether or not the replacement is warranted (see Henodus for example, where the reason for the replacement is less cut and dry). Taxobox images are for obvious reasons important and replacing a bunch of them over minor differences could come across as trying to claim the spot so to say (not suggesting that its the case of course). It's also probably better to be more consistent with edit summaries, I see that some of your edits to note the improvement in resolution, but others don't really give an indicator as to why the newer images should be preferred. As for Stupendemys, I've already explained the revert in the edit summary briefly, but the AMNH mount combines fossil material from two different turtles and there was a good reason why that mount, albeit famous, was eventually replaced when the page was brought to GA status.

I do hope I haven't discouraged you, uploading images is a massive help to Wikipedia and always appreciated so I do hope to see more coming from you, especially for taxa which may not have photographs on Wikimedia yet. Happy editing and have a good day. Armin Reindl (talk) 13:41, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey Armin,

Thanks for this -- I will definitely be more careful when editing taxobox images from here on out! That's a good point about it looking like I'm trying to "claim" certain pages, the last thing I want to do is seem like I'm trying to dominate Wikipedia with my photos. You're also right that I haven't added descriptions as to why I've been replacing certain photos, but from here on out I'll make sure to provide very detailed descriptions for every taxobox edit. I feel like I should have looked more closely at the Stupendemys edit summary and realized that the AMNH reconstruction was outdated and should not be used as the main photo, that's my fault. I just started editing last week, so I apologize for being naive about this stuff!

Ultimately my goal was to go to AMNH and get the highest-quality photographs possible to improve Wikipedia. However I am aware that because the fossil halls at the museum were last updated in the mid 1990's, that many reconstructions will be outdated (for example, the Edmontosaurus mounts have anatomically incorrect posture). From here on out, I will make sure to research the most recent data for each taxon to ensure that the AMNH reconstructions are still up-to-date. I have about 60 more photos that I plan on uploading, most of them being taxa which don't have photos on their main page. Many of these are prehistoric vertebrates, especially ancient actinopterygians and amphibians.

If there are any taxa at AMNH that you want me to obtain photographs of, let me know! I live in NY and can head to the museum on any weekend. Ryan Schwark (talk) 16:56, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad you understand the initial concern, even if its clearly unwarranted on my side. I'm also glad to see that I haven't discouraged you, having looked further through your edits there are some notable improvements for sure in terms of photo quality, it's simply that mass edits by newer accounts often attrackt a bit of suspicion (like I said tho obviously unwarranted looking through your work so far).

Don't beat yourself up about Stupendemys too much by the way, really the only reason I caught on to it was because I wrote that page way back when and the info is not super widespread regarding the skull swap. Alas it is the risk of fossil mounts in many cases and something is bound to slip through the cracks eventually, it happens all the time.

Just the same getting into the flow of editing obviously takes some time, both in getting to know etikette, learning to avoid faux pas and just generally getting familiarized with the process, its a constant learning process.

I'm looking forward to see whatever else you got in your collection and if I can think of something I'll let you know. Once again happy editing, thanks for your understanding and thanks for contributing. Armin Reindl (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2024 (UTC)