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 merge to eurypterid . MBisanz talk 00:02, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of eurypterids[edit]

List of eurypterids (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Article is already severely outdated. An updated classification and a list of currently valid genera is already present in the article on Eurypterid and the two systems currently conflict with each other. I would have just migrated the former to the latter, but the updated system fits in with the Eurypterid article as it is, negating the need to split. This article has some additional info (e.g. fossil range, location, synonyms, a full list of species, etc.) but they can't easily be rechecked against Dunlop et al., you'd quite literally have to rewrite the article entirely. I think it's better to delete this for the moment, until an updated version can be written, that is.  OBSIDIAN†SOUL 16:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I'm not sure deletion is a good idea. We need to have a comprehensive list of all genera whether they are currently valid or not to have a means of a explicitly clearing up any confusion as to whether or not certain genera actually are currently valid or not. Most readers are probably not aware of the most cutting edge research and will probably be under the impression that some deprecated genera are still valid. Just look how many people still think Brontosaurus is a thing, and that's despite decades of time passing and a much less obscure subject matter. The list in the main Eurypterid article is good, but I think we need a separate article to house a more comprehensive list including deprecated taxa and more information like the age ranges, etc. Abyssal (talk) 16:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just copy my post from the paleo talk page here: Wouldn't it make more sense to cut the huge list from the eurypterid article (which seems to be 50% list, perhaps too much) and replace whatever is in the list with that? FunkMonk (talk) 16:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Random unrelated comment: I've userspaced a backup of the page as it now stands in case we ever need to restore anything. Abyssal (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I thought of doing that, but as Stemonitis said below, the list as it stands now in the Eurypterid article is not actually that big. It's quite well within the normal length of such lists in articles of other higher taxa. Yes, we could replace it, but imo, it's an unnecessary split.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was actually quite reluctant to AfD this, seeing the difficulty of compiling such a list, but we have no choice really. I'd be quite happy if the list can be retained and updated to fit with the 2011 system, but I do not see that happening any time soon. I'm not aware of any new comprehensive treatments of all eurypterids down to the species-level. In the meantime, the only thing the list is doing is misleading readers by contradicting correct information in other articles. For example, Mycterops is already correctly under Mycteroptidae in its own article, but in the list, it's still listed under Woodwardopteridae. And I disagree on retaining the list for historical purposes. Especially when there is no indication that the list is outdated and should not be used for reference. This is not quite the same as the Brontosaurus example, since that is already a redirect. This would be more like having an article on Apatosaurus and another on Brontosaurus at the same time, with no indication on either of the pages that they actually refer to the same thing, and that one of them is out-of-date. The list is still useful of course, but to us, not to our readers. I was actually thinking of making it a subpage or something, but that's also unworkable given that this page is a redirect target for almost all eurypterid genera.
I think part of the problem itself is because it's a list of all species in an order. That makes it extremely difficult to keep up-to-date. You'd have to be aware of every single revision, every single taxonomic dispute, every single invalidation, etc. Not to mention this actually specifically includes synonyms and misidentified fossils. I think it's best if we keep the list strictly down only to the genus level. We can still save the information by creating articles on the genera, families, etc. (most of them are still redirects to this page) and migrating parts of the list there. That way, individual pages can be updated more easily with no danger of introducing contradiction.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I just redownloaded the 2011 pdf, and I was wrong, it actually has a list of species, including synonymies, incertae sedis, etc. So, technically, we can still update that article with that. Still, the point stands, such a list would be unmanageable in the long run. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:39, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 18:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 18:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge. The main eurypterid article already has a list of genera, so this can be readily redirected there, with no loss of functionality. That article is not so large as to need breaking up, but if it ever does, then we can copy its list over to this title. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note that a "merge" would be actually just a redirect. Nothing can be truly merged from the current article as all the genera, including authorities, are already listed in the newer system. The current list of species can't be merged either, as they've also been reclassified.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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