Flag for Taxon: Dinosaurs (Class Dinosauriformes)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bobby23 | Dinosaurs (Class Dinosauriformes) |
class should be swapped with Dinosauria; Dinosauriformes isn't really a class name |
Nov. 20, 2018 04:07:06 +0000 | leytonjfreid |
Reworking taxonomy |
Comments
Someone had created Dinosauria as an order. I created a taxon change draft using that here (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/122875), which gives the error message: Output taxon rank level not coarser than rank level of active children of input taxon Dinosauriformes.
That is because the already made Dinosauria is an order (It should be a clade) and so are Saurischia and Ornithischia (They should also be clades). In fact, INat's dinosaur taxonomy is completely screwed up. I can go ahead and fix it if ya'll think it's worth it.
Can you clarify what you'd do to fix it?
Swap all the current groups with ones at the correct level and add all the necessary in between group like Maniraptora. Also probably most families like Oviraptorosauria. I'd also add Herrerasauria using the treatment where it's outside of Theropoda.
Okay.
After 13 hours, I have finished adding all families in dinosauria, along with completely fixing the taxonomy.
I used the Weishampel 2004 taxonomy, with some spots compressed to make them work with INat, and some deviations to match modern research
Thanks.
Dinosauria and its subordinate nodes should not be active. They break monophyly with Vertebrata and Aves, which is explicitly against iNat curator guidelines.
The monophyly was already broken though. Having reptiles breaks up the monophyly with Vertebrata and Aves, and having Amphibia breaks up monophyly with Vertebrata and Reptilia. All of Vertebrata is currently paraphyletic, all of it's children being descendants of each other, not direct descendants of vertebrata. If anything, this is playing into the polyphyletic system already in use with INat. Without these taxa Vertebrata would paraphyletic, which would be even less accurate than it already is. Many people (Even though they aren't supposed to) use INat as a taxonomic reference, meaning we should prioritize a correct tree over a more lazy and convenient one. Also having dinosauria does not affect anything negatively at all, it doesn't cause problems, and it doesn't make it less accurate. It only makes it more accurate and clears out data that would just sit at Vertebrata and be a nuisance to people trying to ID. According to the curator guide, Vertebrata already breaks the rules: "As a rule of thumb, not including additional nodes in iNaturalist is preferable to including but only partially curating additional nodes as in the middle tree above. Please consider before introducing additional nodes: (1) are there global references that will enable curators to properly determine whether other taxa are siblings or descendants of the node? (2) are you willing to take the time to fully curate these other taxa? If during your curation you encounter partially curated nodes, it may be preferable to remove them rather than to fully curate around them if it is not possible or practical to fully curate them." By not including all the taxa, Vertebrata is not fully curated and should either be deleted (Bad idea), be curated accurately to science (Which it currently isn't), or just be left as having dinosaurs, synapsids, etc.
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#nodes
The issue isn't strictly monophyly, it's that it's an entirely extinct group that breaks monophyly, which is explicitly against guidelines. The higher nodes like Reptilia/Aves/Amphibia/etc. can't be edited because there are too many associated observations, which is an issue with every kingdom at the moment. These nodes having preexisting problems is not relevant to the issue of extinct taxa.
It definitely does cause problems, because these taxa are constantly flagged for the taxonomic issues they create and accrue, when omitting them is what you are instructed to do as a curator.
The section of the curator guide you are quoting is irrelevant. It is about nodes not covered by an external framework, between nodes that are covered. I would recommend reading through the curator guide again.
Dinosauria is already inactivated so why are you even talking about this?
Because it's active, and you added a bunch of nodes to it a month ago? https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1517206-Dinosauria
Ohhhhhhhh. I just realized what happened, yea it was originally inactive but I forgot to inactive it after the swap. Thank you for bringing this to my attention (even if I didn't fully understand what you were saying at first, sorry bout that), you can go ahead and inactivate it. Or I could it'd just be while before I'm able to
Unfortunately, since you added so many children and didn't mark them as inactive, Dinosauria can't be marked as inactive until all child taxa are. Now it is a lengthy process. I wish I had seen these comments earlier because there wasn't much point in adding all of the families given that they will all be inactivated now. Oh well...
I don't agree with inactivating them but rynxs will probably keep arguing for it and I'm to sick for this. @zdanko if you're willing to keep the discussion alive, please do, and I'll rejoin when in better health
I agree with rynxs on that front: the curator guide doesn't have provisions for extinct taxa, and I would support inactivation.
I seem to be seeing multiple extinct but active subtaxa listed for the parent taxon, not only Dinosauria. I haven't fully looked into this issue but wouldn't think Dinosauria necessarily should be inactivated, at least if some but not necessarily all other extinct taxa aren't. Another factor to consider is the work people put into adding the taxa. Also, on the Taxonomy tab of the parent taxon page, the extinct subtaxa are already removed from view unless you click on a button to show them, so they don't seem to be "in the way" in the sense of making it harder to read and use the taxonomic view, and they still contain informational value despite being extinct.
@bobby23 With the new updates for curation (see the forum for more details) you should be able to do this once the updates are implemented.