Template talk:Critter

Do we really need to mention Furries and Wookies? -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 08:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, not every furry is a carnivorous mammal. -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 19:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Generally, we categorize a bit broadly on this wiki. Some semi-related clutter in the categories is funny, as long as it doesn't overwhelm the stuff the really belongs in the categories. And, we tend to put mythical animals in the regular animal categories. Having a separate mythical animal template template would be too much work, and probably too serious.

In other words, if we take Furries or Dragons out, to be consistent, we would need to move hundreds of other creature articles into mythical animal categories. Now, there might come a time when this template will be overwhelmed by mythical and absurd beasts, in which case, someone would need to separate out some of the imaginary animals. However, I don't think we are at that point yet, and we probably won't ever be. --Mnb'z 19:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would propose to move Furries to "Whatnot" since they're kind of special animals. -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 19:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind I go ahead and change it. -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 19:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I really don't care, as excepted. --Mnb'z 07:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

You spent all this time making the template and writing replies to my questions and you simply don't care? -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 07:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I was saying I don't care if furries are listed under carnivores or whatnot. --Mnb'z 07:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Sorry for the misunderstanding. -Sockpuppet of an unregistered user 11:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

More intuitive animal categories

This is sort of an update to Forum:Categories, Bird Images, Gay Images, WTF? where Mn-z explained the idea behind separate categories for images: Category:Example would hold pages about Example, Category:Example Images would hold files for Example, and Category:Example Images CA (catch-all) would hold files for Example and any of its subcategories.

It didn't work when scaled: Category:Mammal Images CA held about 3500 files ranging from Hitler to puppies, and there was no telling what it would contain on the next page. It grew out of sync with the rest of the categories, requiring each branch of category to be updated for a single new file. Just using the most specific category that fits requires the least effort to maintain.

I've changed {{Critter}} and categories to be more intuitive, branching categories off into subcategories when pages approach 200 files, using short category names with consistent sentence case. Rather than having a "whatnot" category, miscellaneous files about a topic belong in the main category — put a bird you don't know where to place, in Category:Birds; and when that category gets full, see which birds are the most common and make a subcategory like Category:Chickens.

It used to look like this, and now it looks like this.

I haven't eliminated all image categories, especially for porn categories: maybe there should be an extra click-through for things like hentai... Dark Web, White Hat (talk) 05:42, 15 March 2022 (UTC)