Category talk:Prehistoric mammals

Ummm.... where did the list go? All the articles assigned to this category have vanished. Any theories? The Singing Badger 15:13, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All categories are broken at the moment. See Wikipedia:Village_pump#Categories_broken.3F... Anárion 15:23, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thoughts on the Prehistoric mammals category

My personal opinion is that while it is good to have the distinctions between the different Epochs, the category of prehistoric mammals should still be included as many in the general public are unaware of which specific Epoch their mammal was from. Essentially, it would be like having two card catalog references. I agree that the Epoch distinctions are more accurate and if I had to chose one or the other, that would be the one I would keep. But I think there is still value in maintaining it. Or perhaps prehistoric mammals could become just a list of, provided all of hte current mammals ended up on the list. Any thoughts?

--aremisasling 20:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think every prehistoric mammal should get four category designations, taxonomy, prehistoric (taxonomy), Epoch(s) known from, Epoch extinction. Logically, users should be able to get to a prehistoric mammal, but looking up mammals by taxonomy, prehistoric mammals by taxonomy, animals known from given Epochs, and animals separated by extinctions.

Ground sloth should therefore be cat:Xenarthrans, cat:Prehistoric mammals, cat:Oligocene mammals (as well as Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene), and cat:Recent extinctions. As more subcategorizing happens and new categories are made, cat:Xenarthra will be switched to cat:Sloths, and cat:Prehistoric mammals will be switched to cat:Prehistoric xenarthrans.

Now that I've thought that through, I'm worried I may have reverted some of your edits in this regard. I think that's what you've been doing. My apologies if that's the case. If this receives agreement, we should post it on the category talk page. --Aranae 21:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, no worries. I've just been starting the extensive task of tracking down all of the prehistoric critters (starting arbitrarily with mammals) and giving them Epoch cats. The intent is to eventually make it universal for all living things. I was mostly posting to head it off at the pass and get some consensus so we could keep it all fairly universal. My only hesitation is that in some of the more long-lived critters, the cat list may get pretty cumbersome.

The other thing I was considering was the higher clad levels on the Tree of Life. Genus and species durations are usually only a few Epochs long, which is easily handleable. But the higher clads like Class and Order can stretch over entire Eras. Especially if, like I had originally hoped, groups such as stromatolites (several billion years old) are included. I had an Order, I think it was, that went from the Cretaceous to the modern day. On the one hand, it's unquestionably useful information to have. On the other, that's a lot of Epochs to include.

I had also considered, and fully support, the four-category system, though I hadn't thought it out quite as thoroughly. I noticed some lack of cleanliness in the taxa end, especially with some of the proto-Cetaceans. Unfortunately with the task of trying to tackle the Epochs dragging on a bit, I just made a mental note of it and kept on plugging. Again, the only reservation is the number of Epochs. I'm not aware of any specific Wiki policy on quantity of categories, so I'm looking, perhaps, for a more experienced editor to advise me a bit on it.

Also, I think it may be useful to do a navigational boilerplate template for the epoch, era, and eon categories. I think it would really bring it all together. This can probably wait until other decisions are out of the way, and the framework is mostly laid.

Those are the thoughts I had.

--aremisasling 21:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a broader category for the Tertiary, Cenozoic, etc. that would somehow imply that it was found throughout the time period? --Aranae 21:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that might do it. The only catch would be that the species would no longer be placed next to contemporaries in each Epoch. Although I think that it would be a perfect option for the higher clads. I'm not sure which way I like better for the species. --aremisasling 22:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)