Aliasing apatosaurus → brontosaurus
Link to alias

Reason:

More well-known name for the same creature.

Edit: Other way would probably be more convenient since apatosaurus implies dinosaur already.

Related implications:

• brachiosaurus -> sauropod
• brontosaurus -> sauropod
• diplodocus -> sauropod
• sauropod -> dinosaur (forum #147420)
• Alias: dinosaurs -> dinosaur (useless plural)

Brontosaurus -> apatosaurus would be paleontologically correct. On the other hand, "brontosaurus" is the better known term among laymen, and I can't imagine anyone knowing the term apatosaurus but not brontosaurus. I think that usability trumps correctness here, so I prefer apatosaurus -> brontosaurus.

This would also make Chrome's spellchecker happier (it redlines apatosaurus and provides brontosaurus as the only suggestion, because fuck paleontologists I guess?).

I've noticed some mention about how Brontosaurus means "Thunder Lizard" and Apatosaurus means "Deceptive Lizard" and how any fossils found where the skull was on the wrong body could be called the latter, so I say alias it this way.

Brontosaurus is an archaic term, apatosaurus is the modern one. So I'd prefer it the other way around.

who cares is there even any need for this alias? Does parasprite halicuinate a meter in his head that fills up everytime he makes a alias or a implication no matter how inane or unnesscary it is? I don't know but I do know one thing for sure, and that's that I love furry porn

memeboy said:
Does parasprite halicuinate a meter in his head that fills up everytime he makes a alias or a implication no matter how inane or unnesscary it is?

The meter has cartoony giraffes on it.

In defense of Brontosaurus

who cares is there even any need for this alias?

Sure. They're two names for the same species, and both are in use (apatosaurus has 52 uses, brontosaurus has 20). Manually editing those would require maintenance, since people obviously apply both, and odds seem good that people might search either one. This is exactly the sort of thing that an alias helps with.

The only question is which will provoke more empty edits (searchability is the same either way): people who know brontosaurus but not apatosaurus trying to add brontosaurus, or people who know apatosaurus getting all buttmad and trying to retag brontosaurus as apatosaurus. I've changed my opinion since my earlier post. Aliasing to apatosaurus may cause confusion, but could educate people (if they try to fix it or look at the wiki page). Aliasing the other way around may cause angry paleontologists. Confusion > anger.

memeboy said:
who cares is there even any need for this alias? Does parasprite halicuinate a meter in his head that fills up everytime he makes a alias or a implication no matter how inane or unnesscary it is? I don't know but I do know one thing for sure, and that's that I love furry porn

Aliases are how we keep the site clean and nicely tagged.

Bah, a recent study shows them as different species. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (yes, I know Scientific American isn't the most reliable source).

To stay relatively neutral I approved the following changes instead:

• Implication: brachiosaurus -> sauropod
• Implication: brontosaurus -> sauropod
• Implication: diplodocus -> sauropod
• Implication: apatosaurus -> sauropod (instead of dinosaur)
• Implication: sauropod -> dinosaur (in forum #147420)
• Alias: dinosaurs -> dinosaur

parasprite said:
Bah, a recent study shows them as different species. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (yes, I know Scientific American isn't the most reliable source).

If we're talking about recent studies then shouldn't we leave dinosaur tag only on feathered creatures and others should be tagged with lizard or maybe dinosaur_(jurassic_park)

Granberia said:
If we're talking about recent studies then shouldn't we leave dinosaur tag only on feathered creatures and others should be tagged with lizard or maybe dinosaur_(jurassic_park)

I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here. I'm unaware of any recent information that all dinosaurs were feathered. Therapods, sure, we've known that for quite a while. Certain non-therapod groupings too, we've known for nearly twenty years had feathers. But I'm unaware of any studies that suggest that all dinosaurs had feathers. Since we're discussing Sauropods here, they make for a good example of a group of dinosaurs that I'm unaware of any evidence of feathers for.

Granberia said:
If we're talking about recent studies then shouldn't we leave dinosaur tag only on feathered creatures and others should be tagged with lizard or maybe dinosaur_(jurassic_park)

To most people, dinosaur essentially means "Any non water-dwelling species featured in The Land Before Time". :P

I might have mentioned this before, but what is the stance on Pterosaurs? The flying reptiles that everyone thinks are dinosaurs but actually aren't? I've considered going through those various tags and trying to clean things up a bit, but I can't remember if we just consider Pterosaurs dinosaurs because that's what people expect them to be, even if inaccurate, or... I don't know. Maybe I've never even asked before.

Clawdragons said:
I might have mentioned this before, but what is the stance on Pterosaurs? The flying reptiles that everyone thinks are dinosaurs but actually aren't? I've considered going through those various tags and trying to clean things up a bit, but I can't remember if we just consider Pterosaurs dinosaurs because that's what people expect them to be, even if inaccurate, or... I don't know. Maybe I've never even asked before.

Unfortunately most people are ignorant about that so they probably will end up being tagged as dinosaurs. But I think they're a lot more distinct than say, canids and canines, for instance.

Clawdragons said:
I might have mentioned this before, but what is the stance on Pterosaurs? The flying reptiles that everyone thinks are dinosaurs but actually aren't? I've considered going through those various tags and trying to clean things up a bit, but I can't remember if we just consider Pterosaurs dinosaurs because that's what people expect them to be, even if inaccurate, or... I don't know. Maybe I've never even asked before.

There's only 14 posts under pterosaur but I suspect it's widely undertagged. I'm fine with not tagging them as dinosaurs.

Implication pterosaur -> reptile would probably be okay though.

Most posts for pterosaurs seem to be pterodactyls, but pteranodon seem to get some tagging as well.

Also, yes, reptile implication would be fine I think.

Clawdragons said:
Most posts for pterosaurs seem to be pterodactyls, but pteranodon seem to get some tagging as well.

Also, yes, reptile implication would be fine I think.

Oh, right. I forgot about those. >.>

I'll make note of this and poke at it in the morning as I'd like to update the wikis at the same time.