Category talk:Sentient species

Question on descriptors
When a real life animal is used to describe a species or creature, do we use that, or try to find another general classification of earth animal. For example I saw that Togorian was changed from "a tiger-like" species, to a "feline" one. What if the descriptor is more complicated than that, like a non-humanoid hippo-like creature, or a cross between one earth creature and another? Just trying to get to specifics on here for when we run into these problems. Also this helps if information is acquired from Wikipedia in which many an anon will compare the species or creature to a real life animal or animals. -- Riffsyphon1024 23:32, 18 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * I find a general classification, for the simple reason that Earth creatures do not exist in the Star Wars universe. If I run into complicated comparisons I search Wikipedia to find out the scientific term. --Imp 23:37, 18 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * I think comparisons to specific species should be avoided, but comparisons to classes or families of animals are OK (so "feline" or "reptilian" are OK, "tiger-like" or "velociraptor-like" are bad). After all, we know they have ducks and falcons.  -- Silly Dan  23:43, 18 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Yea, it was just those scientific terms that threw me over. If I encounter any like this in question, I will also try to replace the earth descriptors with the more formal usages. -- Riffsyphon1024 00:17, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Something is Wrong Here
Well, I looked at the article Whill and saw that at the bottom of the page, it said Categories:Races and species. I followed that link to this article, though Whill is nowhere on the page. How is this possible? KFan II

Never mind! KFan II 13:23, 29 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Completeness
"See also List of races and species and List of Unidentifiable Species for more complete listings." That first part seems like an odd statement to me. Lists require manual updates, while categories update automatically (if applied at creation). --SparqMan 07:51, 8 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, for some time, the list was more complete because we hadn't added articles on all the species from the usual sourcebooks yet. &mdash; Silly Dan  03:22, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Subcategories
Should categories like Category: Dugs really be subcategories of this one? That category, and others like it, are used for characters, not for sub-types of Dugs. &mdash; Silly Dan 03:22, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * I guess everyone agreed with me. 8) &mdash; Silly Dan 03:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, they're supposed to be placed in Category:Individuals by species. --Imp Comlink 03:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you know, they're there already! :P --Imp Comlink 03:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Split
I think we should split this into Category:Species and Category:Sub-species. It would make this giant category somewhat smaller, and "races" is a poor term anyway. --Imp Comlink 02:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that "Races and species", "Races", and "Species" are all somewhat bad, considering that they could be applied to non-sentient species as well. As for splitting &mdash; the category is going to be big anyway, regardless of any logical splitting scheme.  Maybe we could put Near-Human species in Category: Human races, though, but that's the only sizeable group of subspecies/races/ethnicities we have in this category. &mdash; Silly Dan 02:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Category:Sentient species, mayhaps? --Imp Comlink 02:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure. (Some people might prefer "sapient", which is supposed to be more correct, but rarely used.) It'll be one heck of a recategorization, though....What about putting Near-Humans in the Human races category?  (A seperate category for Near-Humans wouldn't work, because people would argue over Lorrdians and Hapans too much.) &mdash; Silly Dan 03:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, sapient is technically more correct... Anyway, I agree with putting the near-humans in the Human races category. As for the recategorization, let me worry about that... ;) --Imp Comlink 03:11, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a big enough move that we should wait for more than 2 of us to agree, though. (If we wait until next Saturday, I could start with the Z's while you start with the A's.  Unless there are some special admin powers you have to recategorize dozens of articles at once....) &mdash; Silly Dan 03:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Sadly, no. Although a bot might be able to do it for us... Ah yes, let's wait till next Saturday, although I don't expect any objections. --Imp Comlink 03:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Hapans and Lorrdians are already in Category:Human races. :) Anyway, I'm in favor of splitting if it cuts down a large category. StarNeptune 03:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * True, but my point was that if there were a Near-Humans category, people might argue about which one they would be put in, or put them in both at the same time, or something. Anyway, putting the Near-Humans in there might help shrink this category a bit. (How about a category for things like Golden Sun, Solanus, and Zonama Sekot, that get listed as separate species and as individual characters?)&mdash; Silly Dan 03:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Idea for recategorization scheme
Now that we have a wiki-droid, recategorizing could be a lot easier. Here are my thoughts:


 * Change Category:Races and species to Category:Sentient species.
 * Put confirmed Near-Human types in Category:Human races, a subcat of Sentient species.
 * Do something similar for any species or group of related species where more than a handful of types are described, and have enough information for articles.
 * Add another subcategory for large, unique intelligences, like Solanus, Golden Sun, Zonama Sekot, the talking mountain from the Ewoks comics, and other anomalies which could count as characters, species, and even locations at the same time. I can't think of a name for this category, yet.

Opinions? &mdash; Silly Dan 16:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I definitely like the idea of recategorising this. I started putting in subcategories, and so far I've done Aquatic species, Mineral-based species, Avian and airborne species, Insectoid species, Arachnoid species, Category:Rodent species. Silly Dan has suggested that these be modified to something along the lines of Insectoid sentient species, or perhaps insectoid sapients, which I think is a good call. At the mo, the category page itself says that it is only for sentients but that is all.


 * Secondly, I wasn't too sure on what other subcategories to use. I'm not particulary hot on biology. For one, I though the arachnoid and insectoid cats could be combined. Possibly the avian should also be split off from the non-avian airborne species such as the Stenax. The mammaltype is really the big one left. At the mo, I have only done rodent. I thought also perhaps Feline (Cathar, Trianii), Primate, Equine (Equine, Chironian, Thakwaash). Any other ideas? And despite Jaxxon's objections, would Lepi be considered rodents? --Eyrezer 11:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, you put Chadra-Fans in the rodent category, though I think they're more like bats. 8) THe Lepi could go in there too, so long as the title says "rodent-like". &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 12:09, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The other point to make is that at the mo, I haven't been removing the species from the general category, so that listing has not decreased. --Eyrezer 11:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The thing is, I really like the alphabetical listing of all species. Perhaps while dividing them up by biology, we could also make subcategories like "Category:Sentient species A-F".  Then, this category or its replacement would have "Category:Sentient species by biology", "Category:Sentient species sorted alphabetically", "Category:Races and species stubs", etc., as first-order subcategories, with "Category:Sentient species A-F" and "Category:Mineral-based species" as one tier below that. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 12:09, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories
--Eyrezer 01:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Category:Aquatic sentient species
 * Category:Arachnoid sentient species
 * Category:Avian and airborne sentient species
 * Category:Botanical sentient species
 * Category:Equine sentient species
 * Category:Feline sentient species
 * Category:Insectoid sentient species
 * Category:Mineral-based sentient species
 * Category:Reptilian sentient species
 * Category:Rodent sentient species
 * Nice. So the Arachnoids wouldn't be a subcat of insectoids? -- Riffsyphon1024 06:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, well it could be. I think I made that comment a little bit further up the page. I had a quick look on wikipedia on arachnids and decided it would be easier to integrate later rather than separate. --Eyrezer 09:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't get too carried away with these now. How exactly are the Yuvernians an equine species? If you can't place something, don't just stick it somewhere. Personally I find the idea of classifying aliens by Earth standards ridiculous, but whatever. --Pdixie 01:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Good call about the Yuvernian. I don't know who classified them as that. It was done by an anon. --Eyrezer 05:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Closer to giraffe I'd say. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In regard to whether species should even be categorised by "Earth" standards, Alien Encounters classes them as amphibians, avians, crustaceans, insects and arachnids, mammals, reptiles, and exotics, so there is a precedent. Perhaps we should also add crustaceans and exotics? --Eyrezer 05:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, and a good example of exotic would be Fiery Ones. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You don't suppose gastropods such as Hutts would fall under crustaceans, would you? I've also seen them described as molluscan. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't think so, but I'm no expert in biology. I formally put most of the crustaceans into the aquatic cat. --Eyrezer 06:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Golden Sun and Knowledge Bank crustaceans? I'm kinda throwing mollusks into the cat at the moment as well. --Eyrezer 06:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Coral is a cnidarian according to all that invertebrate paleotology I learned in college. But on a whole, I wouldn't classify it as a crustacean. Then again, I've never seen a sentient Force sensitive coral. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Lol. What then would a cnidarian come closest to?--Eyrezer 06:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well a cniderian is so unique it seems to get its own space in the chart for Animalia. Cniderians are actually broken up into multiple phylums: corals, jellyfish, and anemones. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I wonder if there is some way of integrating the unidentified species into these cats. Ie Elbo could be put into the Crustacean category, although his species is not specified. --Eyrezer 05:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * But Elbo is his name and not his species name, so we can't do that. But had his species had a name, then they would go into that category. -- Riffsyphon1024 03:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Attn: Recategorization CT thread
Forum:Races and species categorization revamp could use some more input. Thanks, &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 04:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)