Talk:List of elephantids

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no consensus for move. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

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List of elephant species → Elephantidae — per recent discussion on Talk:Elephant (here). --Una Smith (talk) 22:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is one of the reasons we use English; it is tolerably clear that this list, under this name, includes everything that can reasonably be called an elephant. If we move, the lay reader will justly wonder whether Elephantidae or Elephantina is the complete one. The discussion referenced also includes a doubt whether Elephantidae covers the ground or is one of three families; but that's a secondary consideration. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The intent here is to merge this content with other content about the family Elephantidae. The most direct way to do that is to move this page to Elephantidae, which currently is a redirect. --Una Smith (talk) 01:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unless there is a standard way for handling this scenario, I strongly prefer the current setup, with minor modifications. I can also point to Lemur and List of lemur species as another example. (Although, admittedly, I am still in the middle of my offline Lemur re-write, so my point will be a little better illustrated within the coming month when I finish.) Since Elephant and (soon) Lemur are/will be extensive articles, adding exhaustive lists of species to a taxonomy section would bog the article down. The way I've done it in Lemur (and could be done to Elephant with minor tweaks), is to use the {{Main}} template instead of "See also" and provide a condensed classification tree within the taxonomy section of Elephant. Then List of elephant species could someday be elaborated and possibly turned into a featured list (FL), just like List of lemur species. –Visionholder (talk) 05:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The standard method appears to be an article about the family, with a taxonomic section. See for example this random selection: Felidae, Canidae, Equidae, Castoridae. --Una Smith (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the slight misunderstanding. (That's what I get when replying after a late night at work.) But looking at the examples you gave, the family pages are articles (class), not a lists (class). Personally, I feel that all or most classification levels deserve their own articles and at least an abbreviated list of subcategories and, in some cases, species (extinct and extant). However, I still favor the "List of..." approach for the actual exhaustive list for two reasons. First, at which level in the classification scheme should the list be offered at? Family? What about the List of lemur species, which lists all lemurs from infraorder down, and includes a 2nd infraorder which is still considered by most academic writers to be considered a lemur? I'm sure there are more examples like this, since not all commonly known groups of animals fall under the family classification (monkeys - 2 parvorders, apes - 1 superfamily, etc.) This leads to my 2nd point: How will users find these lists easily? Following the lemur example, anyone who is interested enough to focus on the taxonomy section is likely to follow the "Main article:" link to List of lemur species. Granted, this concern could easily be addressed by not only linking to the family/parorder/superfamily/etc. name in the taxobox, but also creating a redirect to "List of ..." and pointing a "Main article:" link to it. But that still doesn't address the first issue, especially for difficult groups, such as monkeys and lemurs (and likely others). –Visionholder (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly support List of Elephantidae species.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:58, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In any case, the proposal is to move the list to Elephantidae, not to Elephant. Elephantidae would cease to be a redirect to Elephant. --Una Smith (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Is this a list of any taxon assigned to Elephantidae, accepted, misspelled or otherwise? Or is it simply a variety of elephant, that should be moved to la:Elephantidae? — cygnis insignis 05:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
  • If there is humor intended here, I'm sorry, but I'm missing it. (Probably didn't get enough sleep last night.) But why the reference to a creationist web site? Creationist claims are almost always over-simplifications that either intentionally or because of a lack of education on the topic mislead the layperson to believe that this, and any other example they can misconstrue, demonstrates "flaws" in evolutionary biology. Anyway, as for your question about the accuracy of the list, I don't have a book about elephant evolution in front of me, but I suspect this list is accurate or close to it. Like most Wikipedia articles, it needs references and should be verified. –Visionholder (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't get the joke, either. And, as an Evo-creationist, I'm sorry to say that the argument Visionholder presents against Creationists holds true in most cases. However, the same can be said about Evolutionists...they tend to oversimplify as well, for example, assuming all life originated from a single species of microbe. However, this argument isn't religious, and whether anyone is Creationist or Evolutionist should not have anything to do with whether a list of taxa within Elephantidae should be moved to the Elephantidae article. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I wasn't trying to make this a relgious topic. I was just worried that the comment and link were meant to imply that these ancient, related species might not really be related to elephants. Granted, fossil species can get reclassified from time to time, and as we learn more, family trees and mistaken identities gradually get worked out. I just don't want to see any good-meaning editor using that link as justification for major changes to the list. However, any incorrect information (noted below by Kevmin) should be cleaned-up and/or removed. (If anyone wants to debate evolution/creationism, please do so on my talk page.) –Visionholder (talk) 17:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose — Wikipedia should be edited for general readers over a specialist audience. What the heck is an "Elephantidae", anyway?!? (and yes, before anyone says anything, I do actually know. I'm simply making the point dramatically here)
  — V = I * R (talk)

What point would that be? --Una Smith (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

That "Elephantidae" is a technical (and there for specialty) term. Sorry, I assumed that would be self evident.
— V = I * R (talk) 07:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support — I'd wager that when a general reader thinks of "elephant species", it is a list of two: African elephant and Asian elephant (yes, they will learn that there are two species of "African elephants"). These other extinct critters are elephants in the same sense that zebras are horses, foxes are dogs, and potatoes are tomatoes. (I'd also wager that if elephants were pets, there would be an elephant chow called Elephantidae.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
  • And I think a lot of this hinges on the question, "Is a mammoth an elephant?" Here in the US, I suspect many people would agree, since we don't have any extant elephants (some would even say that a mastodon is an elephant, even though mastodons are not in the Elephantidae). But are the views the same in South Africa or India?--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:58, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Strong support - This obviously has no place other than the Elephantidae page. Why isn't it on that page already? Every other family page has a similar listing. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Per Talk:Elephant#Bolding of Elephantidae in lede, Elephantidae is to be changed from a redirect to an article. The content of this list article is a taxonomic classification of the taxon Elephantidae. Such content usually is included in the taxon article. --Una Smith (talk) 15:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, this is fine for this specific situation, but it does not address the issue I pointed out above. For lists of species within common animal types (such as elephants, monkeys, lemurs, cats, etc.), not all types will be monophyletic. For paraphyletic groups, this approach won't work. Consequently, we won't have any standards—List of elephant species will be on Elephantidae, while List of lemur species will be on a separate page because it includes 2 infraorders or if someone creates a List of monkey species it will also be on a separate page because it includes 2 parvorders. Again, I think it is best to standardize on using a separate list page for lists of species by animal types, and then providing condensed lists with links to the main lists wherever the lists seem appropriate. Furthermore, these lists will be found at different levels for different groups: infraorders, parvorders, orders, families, subfamilies, etc., etc. Just remember that you are setting a precedent here, which will make future decisions more difficult if we are to maintain standards within WP:MAMMAL. –Visionholder (talk) 15:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

List of lemur species is problematic in a manner similar to List of elephant species: in it, "lemur" is not defined in any intelligible way. By counting families and making inferences, I gather the implicit definition is all the extant families in suborder Strepsirrhini. That is a very peculiar definition; it requires a reliable source. In any case, that other list is irrelevant here because, unlike Elephantidae, Lemuridae already is an article and already has a classification section. --Una Smith (talk) 03:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

List of lemur species isn't the best example because, for one, Lemur will address all of these issues but has yet to be published (by me), and two, I suspect that if the publications based on genetic research are accepted then infraorder Chiromyiformes may someday be change (back) to a superfamily within Lemuriformes. Ultimately, the evidence suggests that they are a monophyletic clade within suborder Strepsirrhini (excluding lorises and galagos). The problem lies more with monkeys, since their list will forever be paraphyletic. (I don't foresee everyone abandoning the term "ape" in favor of making "monkey" a monophyletic grouping, and the evolution of apes from monkeys is pretty much assured.) For that reason, if someone ever creates a List of monkey species (and they might... or I might), then it will have no other place than on a separte "List of..." page, which breaks the nice and neat rule of "put the list of common animal groupings under the appropriate taxonomic level and not on a separate list page." Maybe I'm overreacting, but I do favor uniformity and order on Wikipedia, and I feel that my suggestion is more adaptable and inclusive for everything under WP:Tree of life. That's just my 2 cents. Go ahead and merge if that's the consensus, because your proposal works very well for this particular case. I'm just concerned about precedents. I'm now bowing out of this debate. –Visionholder (talk) 04:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

New information. Elephantidae now is a stub, and given the poor quality of content in this list, I now prefer to tag it and abandon it. The list has been much improved. However, as the target now is an article with appropriate content, moving this list to Elephantidae no longer is appropriate. The best options now seem to be to merge the list into Elephantidae or to move the list to List of Elephantidae species. --Una Smith (talk) 04:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

See, this is the type of development which generally makes me think that the deletion process is bad, and also makes me happy that these moves take time to implement. I wish people were generally more willing to really solve the underlying issues, as has happened in this case. Anyway, since this list is about more then just the Elephantidae family, I still think that it should be kept here (and worked on further, as appropriate).
— V = I * R (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

A page move is not a deletion. On the contrary, it is a way to keep relevant edit histories in context. The underlying issue that emerged from this discussion has not yet been solved. That issue is the implicit and ambiguous definition of "elephant" hence ambiguous scope of the list. --Una Smith (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose merge The year of edit history here is a tangent to the revision history of Elephant. The article Elephantidae now contains content from the latter, properly attributed by that editor, but was not derived from this list. The nom has also noted the discussions preceding its creation on Talk:Elephantidae, giving it more than satisfactory attribution; I see no other feasible means of doing this.

A move to any coherent title changes the scope or content (again). A list of Elephantidae species would be more useful if the 'elephant classification' heritage was dumped, although even simply listing the species, without the other ranks, would need to be heavily annotated. Proboscidean taxonomy needs context, primarily in articles, a selective list is likely to be misleading without that.

If the scope of this list is maintained, pseudo-systematics of a common name, the new page should be named "a parade of elephants by species", to accord with those taxonomic conventions. Any of our lists, especially on a conspicuous animal, should be properly referenced. It would have to be started anew with RS, so this erroneously named list could be viewed as unnecessary; therefore I would also be inclined to support a move to delete and start again. cygnis insignis 12:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support Per the reasons that are given by Una et al. This list started out at Elephant wich currently has no mention of the members of Elephantidae other then the living species. As per the discussions at Equidae, there should be an article about the entire family which covers the relationships between the different members ages for evolution and extinction, etc. I would also be cautious about trying to generate lists of species for extinct taxa known only from the fossil record as most of the time there are several differing opinions as to what is a species and what inst based off of the presently known fossil material. Another problem with this particular list is that it was originally created by a user (User:Reboty) who was banned as a meatpuppet of a long time vandal. I am working on sorting out the extinct taxa better and would like to note that much of the tribe and subtribe names are not real taxa at all but appear to be completely made up. it looks like this will be a relatively short list when I finish and should pose no problems being included in an article on the family.--Kevmin (talk) 16:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.