Talk:Animalia

Should "Animalia" be merged with "Animal"?

I think that there is a very good chance that this article will become redundant with Animal (or vice versa). Furthermore, Plantae redirects into Plant, which is inconsistent with Animal/Animalia's separation. Do you all think that one should be merged with Animal, while both articles are still short? And if so, in which direction do you think the merge should occur? Joshua Choi 18:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not an expert on the subject, but I think we're talking about two related but different things here. I doubt if they will ever be merged. I could be wrong -- certainly some experts in the field will be able to advise us. Hayford Peirce 18:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Please don't add new material to your original comment, as it's hard to figure out how to answer. Just start indenting your way down the page with anything new! In any case, there are at least four biology Editors pretty active these days, why don't you ask any of them? Send them a private email if you like or put a message on their User page. User:Gareth Leng, User:Chris Day, User:Dalton Holland Baptista, and User:David E. Volk spring to mind.... Hayford Peirce 20:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I prefer Animalia to Animal as I prefer Plantae to Plant and Orchidaceae to Orchids, although no naming conventions have been settled for taxonomy so far. BTW, what is the classification system to be used? Animalia and Animal show completely different taxonomies on taxoboxes. Dalton Holland Baptista 20:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that! I'm getting used to doing this, so I won't do it again. :) I think I will contact a biology editor now and see what he/she says. Joshua Choi 20:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Dalton is a biology editor with expertise in taxonomy. While biologist might prefer the Animalia there is also an push to use the "obvious" english title for articles. This could go either way depending on your philosophy so there is no easy answer. Chris Day 22:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I've put something on User_talk:Dalton_Holland_Baptista. I came up with the possible options I see:

• Keep Animal and Animalia separate, and let them develop redundant information. I don't think this would be good at all.
• Keep Animal and Animalia separate. Put everything having to do with animals in biology into Animalia. Make Animal a disambiguation page containing a link to Animalia.
• Merge Animal's information into Animalia, and turn Animal into a redirect to Animalia.
• Do the vice versa of the above.

This essentially boils down to the old argument: should a group's article title be its more scientific name (Animalia) or its more common name (Animal)? I think everything except the first option is fine—but I think the second choice is most robust. Regardless of what is chosen, consistency should be forced with all other similar pairs, such as Plantae vs. Plant, Eukaryota vs. Eukaryote, etc. Joshua Choi 02:55, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

This has been a long and, at times, very bitter argument in various fields such as plants, biology, history, and philosophy and some of the original members, and very prolific contributors, have actually left because of it. It's very sad, because a number of extremely valuable contributors have disappeared. And, I fear, it's nowhere near a resolution. My own suggestion, for your own peace of mind, is to let the matter drop for the moment and to concentrate on writing/editing articles that interest you. Mulitiple redirects will get everyone who's interested to the page in question, regardless of what it's called, and the taxonomy question will, someday, be resolved. Eventually, when we have a million Authors and ten thousand Editors, the whole question will be resolved once and for all. Until then, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown...." Hayford Peirce 03:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)