Category talk:Canines

Rename to Category:Dogs
It's simple, categories should have simple names as they are meant to aid in navigation. Dogs is much simpler than canines and should therefore be renamed to it.

Proposer: Deadline: September 16, 2013, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per this proposal and my comments on the two TPPS like this.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal
 * 4) "Canines" could also refer to your teeth as well.
 * 5) Per Proposal.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) - Simpler is better. "Dog" can also be used to refer to the whole Canidae family (like how "cats" is used as am umbrella term as well as to refer to the domestic species), and either way, no one's gonna go splitting hairs about it around a Mario wiki.
 * 8) Per all.
 * 9) Per the above
 * 10) The animals Time Turner mentioned still qualify as dogs. People refer lions, tigers, mountain lions, bobcats, and lynxes as cats, so I'm sure the same applies to how wolves, foxes, coyotes, jackals, and raccoon dogs as dogs.
 * 11) – Per Yoshi876, Walkazo, and LeftyGreenMario.

Oppose

 * 1) This is silly. "Canine" doesn't refer exclusively to dogs; it's a name for an entire group of animal. Dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, jackals, and others are all part of the canine family, and our wiki uses this category accordingly. If we change this name, we're gonna have some problems with categorization.
 * 2) Per Time Turner.
 * 3) Per GD. Are wolves called dogs? Of course not!

Comments
@Supporters: You do realize that if you move this, you'll have to make Category:Foxes, Category:Wolves, etc.?--
 * Isn't "dog" an umbrella term for all of these animals though? If I'm wrong, then the Magic School Bus lied to me for once. 18:34, 9 September 2013 (EDT)

Subcategories
Could we have subcategories like foxes, wolves, etc.? When the title is Category:Dog, people would think of domestic dogs. While I respect the decision that the proposal above voted, I would have voted oppose if I was here sooner. While "dog" may be a general term, I think there should be some subcategories so that Tails doesn't get mistaken for a domestic dog like a labrador retriever or something. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2013 (EST)
 * "Dog" is an umbrella term used for the animals that fall under the category of canines. Categorizing foxes under dogs may even help people educate that not only domestic dogs are considered dogs as well. 21:11, 13 December 2013 (EST)

Rename back to Category:Canines (or do something else)
I've been meaning to write about this for awhile, but only got around to it when my memory was jogged. This is a hilarious piece of jank that somehow remained undetected thanks to people simply not noticing. Back in 2013, the category was renamed to "Dogs" simply because it is "much simpler" than Canines. (Someone also mentioned "Canines can also mean teeth!" which feels incredibly in poor faith, especially since it turns out Dog can mean only one thing that some of these articles do not mean but more on that in a bit, but the overwhelming reason is just that "Dogs is simpler".)

Thing is... It's kind of forgetting massive nuance, which you can very easily trace back to the difference between the scientific classification of the family Canidae, versus the specific nature of the Canis familiaris (that's "domestic dog"). Namely, all dogs are canines, but not all canines are dogs--far from it.

Here's a few articles that are classified as "Dogs" due to this proposal:
 * Raccoon - A canine, yes, but certainly not a dog.
 * Miles "Tails" Prower - Foxes are technically canines, but no thought was put into how a vulpine is different from a pet dog when the rename was made. Fox McCloud is considered a dog for a similar reason.
 * Lucario - Based loosely on a Jackal (namely of the Anubis sort, which is now considered to be closer to a wolf), while both are close to dogs, neither of them are truly dogs--just canids.
 * Penkoon - My big one. This is an enemy that is a fusion of a Tanuki and a Penguin. Because we blanket considered all canines to be dogs, and tanuki are canids, this thing is in the Dog article. I have even included a picture of it. This is dogs.

This... This is silly. Saying nothing of how the Chain Chomp is not a part of this category for reasons yet unknown to me, yet Stapler (boss) is (despite pretty much being even more extremely in the direction Chain Chomp is, being a non-dog looking creature that just happens to behave like a dog and is treated like a dog in canon)--despite all the things we rampantly classify as Dogs due to a haphazard rename, the staple Mario "fantasy dog" creature simply isn't in here at all.

There are a few solutions I've devised to this quandary.


 * The simple solution to rename: Just turn it back to Category:Canines. It turns out there is a lot of nuance to the term and the only reason we did the rename was under the assumption it was easier--instead, now we have to explain how Tails is legally a dog because we renamed "canines" to "dogs" in 2013.
 * The more convoluted solution to rename and split: This may sound like overkill, but we're no stranger to elaborate taxonomy categories, it turns out--just look at Category:Birds! Not only do we have all the avians in the series, but we have specific subcategories for specific kinds, like Category:Corvids and Category:Penguins, and even fictional birds from the Mario franchise like Category:Goonies. We could rename the category to Category:Canines, then further divide into Category:Dogs, Category:Raccoons, Category:Foxes, and maybe toss in Category:Chain Chomps for good measure. The only reason I can see that this wasn't done is that, in 2013, it was stated that by willfully categorizing foxes under dogs, it may "help education people that not only domestic dogs are considered dogs"... but dogs literally only refers to domestic dogs to most people, that's what the meaning of the word is, that's the point of the taxonomy classification system and why canines includes dogs but not all canines are dogs, so we're not exactly sending the right message there.
 * Do nothing: We will explain Penkoon is a dog because TECHNICALLY it's half Tanuki and Tanukis are canines and dogs are canines. Don't... Don't do this. This benefits basically nobody.

Proposer: Deadline: Sunday, October 31st, 2021, 11:21 AM EST

Rename

 * 1) - If nothing else, I simply want to rename the article to Canines. If we need to split it in the future, we'll go from there.
 * 2) - This has been bothering me for a while. Per proposal.
 * 3) The idea that canine is in any way a "complicated" term is pretty silly, I figure most people would know it anyway (that and feline). I don't think we need to go all the way to splitting though.
 * 4) Per.
 * 5) I didn’t even know this existed until now. Anyways, per proposal.
 * 6) Per all, this name is bizarre.
 * 7) Per proposal.

Rename & Split

 * 1) - As one of the main people to make a bunch of taxonomic subcategories on here, this also works for me.
 * 2) - I'd vastly prefer a split as well, but if it comes to just a rename, so be it.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) I’d rather we form subcategories for specific clades than lump everything together. Plus, it’d be consistent with how we handle similar categories, like the aforementioned Category:Bird.
 * 5) It would be consistent with the other animal categories such as the aforementioned Birds category.
 * 6) Per all.

Comments
Perhaps a silly question--can I vote for multiple options on my own proposal? I'd definitely vote either/or in that event.  ~Camwood777  (talk)  11:59, October 17, 2021 (EDT)
 * Oui. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 12:06, October 17, 2021 (EDT)

I think for consistancy if this passes, Category:Cats could be renamed to "Category:Felines" as well. What do you think about that? 12:37, October 17, 2021 (EDT)
 * Same here, honestly! It was also renamed around the same time. I feel like that should be its own proposal, though.  ~Camwood777  (talk)  12:42, October 17, 2021 (EDT)
 * On that subject, though, canid carnivorans covers a lot more variety-of-species than felid ones, so it's not exactly the same situation. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 12:43, October 17, 2021 (EDT)