Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of molluscan genera represented in the fossil record

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 delete. Sandstein 19:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List of molluscan genera represented in the fossil record[edit]

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List with no clearly defined criteria for inclusion. This was originally created as List of extant animal genera represented in the fossil record , and was moved to the current title (without discussion) with the rationale that entries were "at least 70% mollusks". The mover made no effort to remove non-mollusks.

Early discussion at Talk:List of extant animal genera represented in the fossil record expressed concerns that it included entries that were not extant animal genera.

Several editors (including myself) have made dozens of edits trying to clean up the list. There remain many entries point to the wrong topic and require disambiguation. There remain many non-molluscs.

I don't think "List of extant animal genera represented in the fossil record" is a manageable topic for a list. Humans continue to discover fossil members of extant genera. Constant maintenance of a list of extant animals also known from fossils would be needed (and it hasn't received necessary maintenance under either of its titles). This was never a "list of molluscan genera represented in the fossil record", as it includes non-molluscs and (under the original title) excludes molluscs known only from fossils. Plantdrew (talk) 00:42, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is there some subset of this list that would make sense to keep, if appropriately sourced? There are a lot of blue links, and presuming that the non-molluscs can be parsed out, to me this would not be a valueless proposition. BD2412 T 00:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- There are separate, much better lists for different mollusc groups in Category:Lists of prehistoric molluscs. This article is honestly redundant enough to be unnecessary. Abyssal (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  There's a reply feature now! :o Abyssal (talk) 01:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Animal, Biology, and Lists. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 05:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

*Draftify Currently this list is a pile, which is explained by its origin (as noted above). I agree that the original "List of extant animal genera represented in the fossil record" is not really manageable. In contrast, both "List of molluscan genera represented in the fossil record" and "List of extant molluscan genera represented in the fossil record" would seem doable, but currently the list is neither. And this is what, 8000 entries? Can't leave that in mainspace for incremental purging - it's plain misleading, and will be for a long while. If a correctly curated list with a more narrow ambit is to be made of it, that should be done in draft. If there's no appetite for that, then delete. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

About-turn - formulating the actual functional premise of this list (below) makes me realize that this would be an artifical make-work construct, requiring constant updating with no sensible payoff. Delete. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well personally I'd think this should be deleted as far too big to be maintainable, but if Draftify is the preferred route then I'll go along with that. If consensus moves towards delete then please count me in that group. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Am I misunderstanding, or wouldn't all known molluscan genera be represented in the fossil record -- including the ones that are still extant and have living species alive today? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd considered revising my nomination to make a similar point. Extant taxa have an evolutionary history. We haven't discovered fossilized representatives of all known extant taxa, but there is no reason to think that the fossils don't exist. We just haven't discovered them yet; I'd say it isn't likely that we will ever discover fossils of ALL extant taxa, but it isn't inherently impossible. Some animals are more likely to be fossilized than others; jellyfish don't fossilize well, animals with hard body parts fossilize well. Molluscs fossilize exceptionally well (hard shells, many live in water which helps preserve them after death); this probably explains why the initial list was so heavily slanted towards molluscs. Plantdrew (talk) 19:43, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I guess so - so this would be a kind of running tally of "which genera that we know should be in the fossil record have we actually found as specimens". - I'll admit that when written out like this, it sounds like a rather risible undertaking. Huh. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:33, 29 March 2022 (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.