Category talk:Species

A good idea i think. It's quite confusing. Dwarves are in Species and Norn in Creatures ?! And what about Humans ?--Moriturus 13:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Redundant

I believe this category is redundant. We already have a more complete, more organized and more descriptive list of creatures of Guild Wars at the NPCs by type category, which, with the Affiliation page, already give us a good way to find everyone we see in the game. I suggest we remove this category. Erasculio 22:18, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The affiliation page is not a category, thus irrelevant. As for the NPCs by type category, that is, in fact, incomplete. This category was for a lore purpose (hence why it is only a sub-category of the lore category), and holds articles and categories which would go into this but not the NPCs by type as the NPCs by type doesn't included "unseen NPCs" - such as the Category:Ancient Dragons and the Giganticus Lupicus. Not only that, but the NPCs by type doesn't organize the types of NPCs, they are just under that. This organizes them much better. Also, NPCs by type doesn't include Category:Animals which is where all the pet allowed animals are kept (among others - and including Animals' sub-categories).

In other words: NPCs by type is incomplete and the two serve different purposes. -- Konig/talk 03:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"The affiliation page is not a category, thus irrelevant": quite the opposite, oh mighty King. It's also a way for players to find a creature; players may seek a monster by wondering where it is (the locations categories), by wondering who are its allies (the affiliation page) and by wondering what it is (the NPCs by type category). Since there's already a way to look for a monster based on what it is, this category (which is effectively the same thing, only more incomplete and less descriptive) is useless.

"and holds articles and categories which would go into this but not the NPCs by type": which could be easily solved by adding those two categories directly to the Lore category. Those two categories are not really worth making an entire redundant system.

"Not only that, but the NPCs by type doesn't organize the types of NPCs": no, it organizes the NPCs in traits based on what we see in game, which is more than could be said about this category. Not only this category is a mess (animal offsprings are outside the animal category), but it also does not list most beings in the game.

"Also, NPCs by type doesn't include Category:Animals which is where all the pet allowed animals are kept": which is something that took two seconds to be fixed.

"In other words: NPCs by type is incomplete and the two serve different purposes": or, in other words, NPCs by type is by far more complete and more organized than this, and it actually has a purpose, unlike this category, which is useless and redundant. Erasculio 16:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I just love how you turn every discussion into a quote war, you do know that makes it very annoying to read through, right? And I really don't get why you and others constantly call me sarcastic high titles acting like I think I find myself higher than others. *sigh* Anyways: The affiliation page is irrelevant to this discussion, as we are discussing about categories not articles.

Go ahead and merge things, but I hate how the NPCs by type category is organized, and the pets and the other things do not belong in the Category:Lore. There is a reason why we have Category Trees. When I asked how categories should be done, I was told by the then admins (I believe it was Gordon, Poke, and Wyn) that there should be as few articles, and categories, in each category - if there are two (or more) similar articles or categories, they should be put into a new sub-category, and categories and articles shouldn't be in both a lower and higher category. The NPCs by type category does not do this and does not allow this to be done.

Instead of calling one a mess and deleting it because of that, try fixing it - this category was in fact the only one I didn't clean up a long while back when I was fixing the Category:Lore because I didn't have time to (and the Category:Animals is a mess like the landmark and, well, many location categories due to the templates which put them into their affiliation page and their affiliation sub-categories. Which is completely annoying, and guess what caused it - NPCs by type!

I hardly call NPCs by type more organized based on what I said before, instead, it's just everything in one, instead of utilizing the category tree which I was told to utilize and that should be utilized. NPCs by type is, in fact, not organized. It's just an all-in-one, where as this was poorly organized and yet to be fixed. And again: Species is for lore purposes, NPCs by type is for game mechanic purposes. An example: Frogmen are not hekets in lore, but they are in game mechanics. Another example: The Nightmare Horde is a lore-only affiliation and is a combination of humans, demons, and nightmares. Another example: "Monsters" (i.e., uncharmable creatures) are not "Animals" by game mechanics, but are by lore. Which is why Category:Animals cannot fit into Category:NPCs by type. -- Konig/talk 19:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit: Oh, and one more thing: Category:Species is incomplete, this is a fact, but that doesn't mean it should be deleted, else we'd be deleting everything in Category:Stubs. Instead, try completing it. If it is organized poorly, try organizing it correctly. -- Konig/talk 19:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"I just love how you turn every discussion into a quote war, you do know that makes it very annoying to read through, right?": it's still the best way to reply point by point in a discussion.

"and the pets and the other things do not belong in the Category:Lore": indeed. Pets don't belong in the Lore category at all; the few "NPCs" that do not exist (Giant Lupicus and the Dragons) do, since they are more part of the lore of the game than of the game itself.

"it's just everything in one, instead of utilizing the category tree which I was told to utilize and that should be utilized": when it's valid. We don't categorize for the sake of categorizing; we put together things which make sense to be together, nothing more, nothing less. All NPCs which should be together are together either in the NPCs by type category or in the Affiliation article.

"Instead, try completing it. If it is organized poorly, try organizing it correctly": and if it's broken, try fixing it correctly. Which is what I'm doing - I'm removing the redundant category, and then fixing the (few) remaining mistakes on the main, better category (NPCs by type). Erasculio 21:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Without reading this above: A category is not redundant unless it is empty. Having to edit masses of pages and remove categories that have especially no harm, just to remove a category that might not be needed completely is a bit pointless. poke | talk 22:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It's usually a good idea to read something before you try to discuss it. Erasculio 23:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of this category. It serves a specific purpose, and has valid entries. I say leave it be. -- Wyn talk 23:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

@Erasculio: I disagree with going into quote wars, it is not the best way to respond to each part. It should be used for some specific parts in a long post, but I view it as, in fact, one of the worse ways to debate with another. That said, by my comment on the category:animals, I didn't mean that pets don't belong in a sub-category of category:Lore, I meant they don't belong right in category:Lore - same goes for the elder dragons category and the giganticus lupicus category.

But the "types" which belong together, such as Category:Zombies and Category:Skeletons, and Skeletal Army, and Category:Mummies (and based on whether you want to go via lore or mechanics Category:Abominations all are the same thing: undead. There are, of course, other examples of this in said category.

The Category is not redundant, as I've tried pointing out to you. They have two different purposes. One categorizes by type (which is why there are no category tree with things like the above examples) and the other, this one, categorizes by species. They also categorize different things: NPCs by type categorizes by NPCs in the game, and Species categorizes by creatures in lore. I don't see Snow beasts in NPCs by type - know why? It isn't an NPC, it's part of one but there isn't an NPC that has that kind of "type."

In the simplest of sentences: The two categories have two purposes. -- Konig/talk 00:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Wyn: and which purpose do you think it is?

"King": "I don't see Snow beasts in NPCs by type - know why?": because you are not looking properly. Erasculio 00:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Because Category:Animals, the only category it is under, does not belong in Category:NPCs by type. Know why? Because of all the sub categories it screws up the other categories within the NPCs by type category thus making dozens of others redundant. I suggest you allow a discussion to finish before you make a change that would mess dozens of things up. -- Konig/talk 00:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Uh, your change has messed things up. You have just added a high number of animals to two subcategories under the Lore category (Animals and Lore stub). I would suggest you to think a bit before making a change that has just messed dozen of things up.

And would you like to see something funny? Out of 9 subcategories within this category, 5 are also within the NPCs by type category, 1 should be if you haven't had just erroneously removed it, and 1 more is within the NPCs by affiliation category. Which is further proof of how this category is redundant (since most of it is the exact same content found in a different category) and incomplete (since it has only a small fraction of the content of the more complete category). Erasculio 00:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It defines species in a lore sense. There really is no good reason to remove this Erasculio. I don't know why you feel so strongly that it needs to be removed. It's a very well developed category with MANY subcategories. removing this means redifining all the others. just leave it as it is. as poke says, it's not doing any harm. -- Wyn talk 01:22, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It's redundant, though, since most of the entries here are just entries from the NPCs by type categories, and thus it's adding little to no information beyond what's already in that category. And it's also incomplete, as it may have many entries, but it does not list most of the beings of the Guild Wars world. Besides, it has the wrong name - in taxonomy, a species is a very small group of animals, so when we add, say, the category "Flamingos" to the Species category, we are making a mistake (as flamingos aren't a specie, they are a subgroup within a genus uniting multiple species).

More importantly, it makes something that is currently a mess into an even bigger mess. The categorization system for monsters is currently very confusing, so in order to find a specific monster based on what it is there are multiple, not always compatible paths. Removing the excess (in other words, redundant categories like this) is the first step into having a more complete and more organized system, taking in account both what a creature is (its type) and what it does (its affiliation). Such a big redefining would be simpler if we just removed pointless categories like this.

(And besides, allowing it to be here just because it's not doing any big visible harm isn't a terribly good argument; we could have someone implementing a categorization system based on how many legs each creature has, and while it would not do any big harm, it would only add one more irrelevant system to our list.) Erasculio 01:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

"You have just added a high number of animals to two subcategories under the Lore category (Animals and Lore stub)"No I didn't. I didn't add anything to lore stub. I moved things from Species into Animals, and ancient dragons into dragons from species, which didn't duplicate anything. Regarding how many are in NPCs by type, if you include all the subcategories, which you should, there are far more than nine and not even half of them are in NPCs by type. Even if "most" of it is in a different category, if the category itself isn't in the same category, and if everything isn't in the same category, then it is, in fact, not redundant. If you can figure out a way to edit everything so that Species and NPCs by type are not only exact duplicates but also make it so it doesn't screw up the purpose of both categories, then one becomes redundant with the other (and it works both ways).

As for your example, that is not what the case is here.

And to reiterate, for the sake of it being seen, everything must be the same to be redundant. And they are vastly different due to how it is categorized. -- Konig/talk 02:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Categories don't add information. That's not their purpose. They are organizational tools. This is a really stupid debate Eras. It does no harm for this to remain. Please leave it be. I don't see any reason to change the way it's been developed. Redundant categories really are not like redundant articles. It doesn't matter if there is some duplication if they are branching separately, which this is. -- Wyn talk 02:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Wyn, do you really think it's more organized to have redundant categories like this? Very well, I'll leave this for now and instead propose a new category tree removing the redudancy and uniting the different systems in one single thing. Erasculio 02:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

That's what you should of done from the get go, considering how different the two categories are. -- Konig/talk 02:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I don't see this category as redundant, repetitive, or irrelevant. Electronic organization of articles allows us to cater to multiple ways of looking at the Guild Wars universe. So, while some (many?) ppls will have little/no need for a Species category (and all it entails), others will. It does no harm and does at least some help. I say keep it.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)