Jump to content

Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Tasks

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We aim is to improve the quality of all palaeo-related articles the project is currently working on. If you feel like you could help with the task, place your name below it. Also, if you would like to post a task for others to look at, post it below or on the project talk page. If you feel a request has been fixed, please scratch it off the list, but do not delete it. Do not feel urged to place your name under every open task.

All members and non-members are also encouraged to elaborate on any existing article or stub, so long as the information provided is correct and current, with appropriate sources provided. If you are in doubt about your information, post it on the project talk page for it to be read over.

Signup

[edit]

Please add new tasks to the bottom.

Resolving cleanup templates


Maintaining the project lists
Contributing paleoart
Revision and approval of pre-2010 FAs
Expanding our shortest articles
Creating articles for paleontologists and books


Improving coverage of fossil-bearing formations
Uploading and adding images and 3D models to articles
Creating articles for new and missing taxa
Expanding high-importance articles
Review or copy edit at the Article Workshop
Rating articles
Adding cladograms as requested
Improving articles to GA/FA status
Reviewing paleoart
Writing good and featured topics

Instructions and resources

[edit]

Resolving cleanup templates

[edit]

As of January 2025, of the 25127 articles in this WikiProject, 3981 articles (16%) are marked for cleanup, with 4946 issues in total. The issues are diverse, but most relate to unsourced sections (1551 issues), needed expansion (755 issues), and dead external links (465 issues). The full cleanup listing makes it easy to find our most problematic articles.

Maintaining the project lists

[edit]
Main page: List of paleontology-related lists

There are over 800 paleontology-related lists. Many of these lists are incomplete and lack proper citations. Several have deeper issues, such as unclear selection criteria or questionable notability. Many of our lists (and categories) have been created by users without consulting the WikiProject, and some of these lists (e.g., many of the timelines of research lists) are not widely accepted amongst WikiProject members and may face deletion requests in the future. We therefore strongly recommend to coordinate with us before doing significant work on such lists. Lists are crucial for our project and need your help!

Contributing paleoart

[edit]
Main pages: WP:PALEOART and WP:DINOART

Paleoart, including life restorations, scale diagrams, and diagrams of skeletons and skulls, are crucial for our project. We also have a shortage of art showing the animals and plants in their habitat, which are very useful for our "palaeoenvironment" or "palaeoecology" sections (example). New art has to be reviewed to ensure accuracy and original research, allowing us to stay in-line with Wikipedia rules.

Revision and approval of pre-2010 FAs

[edit]

The following featured articles (FAs) on taxa were promoted to FA status prior to 2010. Taxon articles can become outdated quickly, and even though most of these articles have been partly updated over time by multiple authors, these updates have not been coordinated and consistent, affecting article quality. At the same time, the FA standards have also increased. One of our goals is to completely revise each of these articles, which should involve multiple authors through collaboration at the Article workshop. After an extensive review at the FA level, the finished article will then be "approved" by the WikiProject and marked as such in the "Article milestones" section of the article's talk page.

Expanding our shortest articles

[edit]
See also: How to structure an article and How to find the fulltext of a paper

As of January 2025, 61% of our palaeontology articles are Stubs that are typically way too short to appropriately cover the topic. A full list can be found here. Improving stubs will help reaching one of our main goals: 20,000 articles rated Start-class or better. Stubs are divided into categories, with every stub belonging to only one category. Below is a count of every stub monitored by the WikiProject organized by subject matter (total number of stubs for each category in parentheses), showing which subjects have the highest number of insufficient or sub-optimal articles.

General paleontology stubs
Stubs related to geologic time periods
Stubs related to groups of prehistoric life

Creating articles for paleontologists and books

[edit]

Although they have never been the focus, articles on notable paleontologists, books, and journals provide critical context information for our articles, and can also be linked in the references sections. However, please review Wikipedia's notability requirements for scholars before creating articles on palaeontologists or other scientists. In short, the subject must have made major contributions to their field, as recognized by other reliable sources, and/or have received significant coverage. Simply publishing articles or naming species may not be sufficient to establish notability, and there may not be enough material to write a satisfying, complete biographical article. The fact that a scientist's name has been linked on Wikipedia, or mentioned briefly in a book, may not be sufficient to establish notability. Writing about any living person requires special sensitivity, see: Biographies of living persons. You can find more tips and guidelines at WikiProject Biography. If in doubt, please leave us a message before creating a biographical article.

Uploading and adding images and 3D models to articles

[edit]
Example of an interactive 3D model

There are many web services providing free-to-use images and 3D models that await to be uploaded to Commons – a list can be found in the Resources. Please refer to Commons:WikiProject Paleontology for conventions and policies.

Wikipedia has recently gained the ability to embed 3D models as interactive objects (see example on the right), which can be particularly useful to display fossils. Note that models need to be converted to the .stl format, and colour information is currently not supported. 3D models can be created using photogrammetry, and free-to-use models can be found on the web in repositories such as figshare or zenodo (see Resources). See this report for other new options for interactive content.

Creating articles for new and missing taxa

[edit]

Please refer to our guideline "Which articles should be created" and "How to structure an article".

Expanding high-importance articles

[edit]
Main page: Important articles
See also: Category:High-importance Palaeontology articles and Category:Top-importance Palaeontology articles

Some concepts, organisms, and locations are key to understanding paleontology as a whole, and their importance should be reflected on Wikipedia. These articles have been assessed by members of WikiProject Palaeontology as being of high-importance but being severely lacking in their coverage. These articles are about organisms and concepts that are important for a variety of historical, cultural, or scientific reasons, but unfortunately their current coverage on Wikipedia falls very short of the standards of an encyclopedia.

This list exists to help editors, and potential editors, who may be interested in helping WikiProject Palaeontology in the areas where that help is most desperately needed. The importance of these articles to science is not properly represented by their current coverage on Wikipedia, and therefore work on these articles is of critical importance to the WikiProject, and to science communication as a whole. Ideally, all of these articles should be either Good Articles or Featured Articles, but due to either lack of interest or attention, these articles fall short of that standard. If improving one or more of these articles is of interest to you, but it is too big of a task to accomplish by oneself, just make a post on the Palaeontology Article Workshop and you should find some willing editors to help!

This list only features the articles which need the most work to be done. For a full list of the high-importance articles that could be expanded, see here.

Top-importance level articles
Paleontology general concepts
People and institutions
History of life
Fossil fish and amphibians
Fossil reptiles
Fossil synapsids and mammals
Geologic formations
Other paleontological fields

Review or copy edit at the Article Workshop

[edit]

Help others to improve their articles or get involved in an article collaboration at our Article workshop! There also might be paleo-related articles waiting for your review at WP:GAN or WP:FAC – check-out our Article alerts. If you enjoy copy-editing, we have great demand!

[edit]

We currently only have four good or featured topics. Some other topics, such as Spinosauridae, are already quite close to reach this goal!

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Tasks&oldid=1287463779"