Talk:Mastodon

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Requested move 25 April 2024[edit]

It has been proposed in this section that Mastodon be renamed and moved to Mammut.

A bot will list this discussion on requested moves' current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.

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Mastodon → Mammut – The informal name "Mastodon" can refer to a lot of proboscidean genera because of the historic usage of the junior synonym as a wastebasket taxon, but it is most often used for M. americanum and not commonly other mammutids of the same genus. Therefore, the genus Mammut would be more appropriate for this article, and it already pulls up nearly 20,000 results on Google Scholar. PrimalMustelid (talk) 11:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

oppose per WP:NCFAUNA we should stick to the common name—blindlynx 16:42, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NCFAUNA doesn't apply here, though. This article here isn't about M. americanum alone, it is about the entire genus Mammut of which "mastodon" most often refers to the type species M. americanum. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:58, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does not seem that 'mastodon' refers to just m. americanum—blindlynx 23:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per WP:PRECISION and nom. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regretful oppose "Mastodon" is the widely used WP:COMMONAME for members of this group, and the fact that "mastodon" used in some technical literature to refer to other primitive proboscidean groups is minor enough that I don't there's much ambiguity. I also think "Mammut" is inadequate as a replacement title for a number of reasons 1. "Mammut" is the name used for mammoths in German and many other languages. 2. Searching "Mammut" on google, (at least in the UK) brings up exclusively results about Mammut Sports Group, suggesting that members of the genus "Mammut" are not the primary topic for the word "Mammut" in English. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I agree with Hemiauchenia that the occasional use of "mastodon" for other genera historically is not significant enough to warrant the move. I also don't think "mastodon" is necessarily restricted to M. americanum; for example, the paper describing M. pacificus referred to it as a mastodon. Finally, Hemiauchenia has a point about "Mammut" being used for mammoths in other languages; "mastodon" seems less confusing/ambiguous. Zach Varmitech (talk) 22:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose we should keep the common name, since many people know it more. Catfurball (talk) 22:47, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Rlendog (talk) 17:09, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]