Category talk:Cats
Add topicLatest comment: 5 months ago by Sbb1413
This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.
Wouldn't it be good to merge this with Category:Plants? The latter is the more common term and seems far better maintained/populated with the two essentially being about the same thing (see Plant taxonomy and Plant).
Despite of this, the former is linked from the main page and contains e.g. Category:Plantae in art with barely anything in it while Category:Plants in art (not a subcat) is well-populated. Merging should be done in a good way if it indeed does make sense (if not things like the need for an additional cat, the difference to the other cat, and the missing media/subcats should be addressed). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:17, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Prototyperspective: I'm late by seven months. Anyway, I support downmerging Category:Plantae to Category:Plants, as they cover basically the same kingdom, with "plants" being a common name for end users. Same for Category:Animalia versus Category:Animals. Category:Equus caballus (scientific name) already redirects to Category:Horses (common name). However, Category:Cats is a dab page, with Category:Felis silvestris catus being the category for what we commonly call as "cats". Category:Tigers and Category:Lions are redirects to Category:Panthera tigris and Category:Panthera leo respectively, which should be reversed. Same for Category:Leopards, Category:Cheetahs, Category:Walrus, Category:Sharks and so on. COM:CAT says, "Category names should generally be in English. However, there are exceptions such as some proper names, biological taxa and names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language." Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 17:03, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
- @Prototyperspective: I've tagged Category:Plants, Category:Aves/Category:Birds, Category:Animalia/Category:Animals, and Category:Mammalia/Category:Mammals for this. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 12:25, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Keep - the Commons standard for living organisms is to use the scientific name, as it is defined, unlike vernacular names which often vary between different dialects of English. Categories by vernacular names should generally be redirects (and always for individual species), or not be created at all. For higher-ranked taxa, there is a case for keeping both (e.g. Category:Aves/Category:Birds), but these should be the exception, rather than the rule - MPF (talk) 17:43, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
@Prototyperspective and MPF: I think keeping one category while redirecting another to the kept category is the way to go. There are several scientific/vernacular pairs to deal with:
| Scientific name | Vernacular name |
|---|---|
| Category:Animalia | Category:Animals |
| Category:Aves | Category:Birds |
| Category:Mammalia | Category:Mammals |
| Category:Plantae | Category:Plants |
To me, keeping scientific names is better than keeping vernacular ones, as it is the Commons standard I've cited. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 17:03, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Sbb1413 @Prototyperspective - as above, in general yes, but for these top-level categories, no, both should be retained. One important point to bear in mind is that they have distinct, and different subcategory trees: would, for example, the entire category tree setup in Category:Birds by country (several hundred subcategories!) all have to be renamed "Category:Aves by country"?? - MPF (talk) 21:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think I agree with MPF on that. I think generally the scientific names for species are better but for top-level domains of earthly life and common animals like cats or birds, the common name may be better.
The best solution may still be using the scientific name but doing something in addition like making Commons display (Birds) next to the category title (the common name already redirects) or making it a setting which of the two to display. This is also an issue in the Commons app, the things I named may not be good ideas...that's for illustration which kinds of things I'm referring to and probably needs some tech development and could be relatively difficult to implement (as a note: search engine indexing and what people using this site know and search for are things we should consider in some way/extent). Prototyperspective (talk) 22:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)- @MPF and Prototyperspective: I've tested the magic word DISPLAYTITLE on Category:Aves and it does not work for either "Category:Aves (birds)" or "Category:Birds". I think $wgRestrictDisplayTitle is set to "true" here, as stated in the MediaWiki help. The problem would be fixed if an interface admin sets the parser to "false". For now, I prefer the widely-used template {{VN}} for vernacular names, and the Wikidata Infobox usually shows the vernacular name the top, according to the display language of Commons. For category names, I think we have to apply an exception to the Universality Principle, especially for English-language constructions like "[taxon] of/in [country]". For biological classifications, scientific names would be used, but for most other cases, vernacular names would be used. For example:
- Category:Aves fossils → Category:Bird fossils (not a biological classification)
- Category:Aves hybrids → not sure with this, but its country cats can be "bird hybrids of/in [country]"
- Category:Aves (female) → not sure with this (gender is a biological classification), but its country cats can be "female birds of/in [country]"
- Category:Birds by country → remains as it is (non-biological classification)
- Category:Orders of Aves → remains as it is (biological classification)
- Category:Videos of Aves → Category:Videos of birds (not a biological classification)
- Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 02:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Of course, to use vernacular names, we should make sure the vernacular name is not ambiguous ("crocodile" can refer to either Category:Crocodilia (including alligators and gharials) or Category:Crocodylidae (true crocodiles)). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 02:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @MPF and Prototyperspective: I've tested the magic word DISPLAYTITLE on Category:Aves and it does not work for either "Category:Aves (birds)" or "Category:Birds". I think $wgRestrictDisplayTitle is set to "true" here, as stated in the MediaWiki help. The problem would be fixed if an interface admin sets the parser to "false". For now, I prefer the widely-used template {{VN}} for vernacular names, and the Wikidata Infobox usually shows the vernacular name the top, according to the display language of Commons. For category names, I think we have to apply an exception to the Universality Principle, especially for English-language constructions like "[taxon] of/in [country]". For biological classifications, scientific names would be used, but for most other cases, vernacular names would be used. For example:
- I think I agree with MPF on that. I think generally the scientific names for species are better but for top-level domains of earthly life and common animals like cats or birds, the common name may be better.
| This category discussion has been closed. | |
|---|---|
| Consensus |  Resolved by consensus |
| Actions | Implement my proposal, with one addition. There will be categories for both scientific and vernacular names. The Wikidata Infobox will be used for vernacular categories, while the {{VN}} template will be used for scientific categories. Regarding humans, they will be put under scientific categories but not vernacular ones. |
| Participants | |
| Closed by | Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 07:28, 23 February 2025 (UTC) |