Category talk:Wildlife

Discussion moved from Image talk:-35 139 11102008 UO31.jpg

Aren't those domestic sheep? I don't see the wildlife. -Robyn 19:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Domestic animals seem generally to have ended up in the wildlife category. This is why some people want to rename it into "Animals" or break it up into two categories. Yet, the general way to deal with it seems to be to ignore the apparent inappropriateness. --Ekorren 10:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd say: Put everything wild into the wildlife category, for domestic animals create an appropriate category and put them there - "Cats", "Sheep", "Horses" etc. --ilpadre 12:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

IMHO that would create too many almost empty categories, also some of those species specific categories would also include wild relatives, so I oppose. Also, if we want to talk about change here, could we please move that discussion to the category talk instead of one arbitrary randomly chosen picture's talk page? --Ekorren 12:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Ekorren: yes, some people have put domestic animals in the wildlife category. Not a lot, not so many I couldn't easily move them. I commented rather than just doing so in case there was some European misalignment on the meaning of wildlife such that sheep kept outdoors were considered to be wild, or something. There is no need to create empty categories and we already have a reasonable population in the Sheep, Cows, and Horses categories. I think we need categories for cats, dogs, llamas and poultry and that will cover everything. It's appropriate to have one category for Wildlife and separate ones for domestic animals because there are fewer types of domestic animals and geohashers are better at identifying them. I don't think anyone wants separate categories for weasels, marmots, skunks, raccoons, badgers, fishers, stoats, wolverines and "weasel-like animal I didn't get a really good look at," but even the fuzziest photo allows us to distinguish between a cow and a horse. There is still some wiggle room for say, domestic deer and bison or wild bighorn sheep. I would expect them all to be under Wildlife, with the bighorns perhaps getting the sheep category too. -Robyn 15:37, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Change the name of the category to Fauna and include all (non-human) animals, wild and domesticated alike. As a bonus, the new name would match up well with the Flora category. --starbird 15:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

While I wouldn't object to an additional Fauna category, I personally want more granularity on my animal galleries than that. If I want to look at sheep I want to see sheep.-Robyn 15:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That's fine; I'm not proposing we abolish the individual animal categories, merely that the wild vs. domesticated distinction doesn't seem important enough to enshrine in separate categories. --starbird 21:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think they that important.

• If it were all animals together, the gallery would be uncomfortably large
• I find an encounter with a wild animal to have quite a different quality than one with a domestic animal

I wouldn't have a problem with a generic "Animals" (or "Fauna") category, but I thnk it should be in addition to and not instead of the Wildlife one. Also I'd probably go through Fauna periodically and add "Sheep" or "Wildlife" or "Cats" tags to those photos as well. And all that said, I'd prefer a sheep be labelled "wildlife" than not labelled at all. I like the topic galleries, both for what they say about categories people care about, and for what we see and how they are the same and different in different countries. -Robyn 16:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anybody's suggesting that Category:Sheep (for example) be abolished. I suppose we could create both "Category:Domestic animals" and "Category:Fauna", with Domestic animals and Category:Wildlife being subcategories of Fauna, but this might be excessively, um, taxonomic. I don't feel strongly about the issue, but if we end up with separate categories for domestic and wild, I intend to take photos of feral cats. --starbird 17:23, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

And I would be happy looking at your cat pictures under both Wildlife and Cats. Careful you don't get bitten. -Robyn 17:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)