The bulk update request #7432 is active.

remove alias squid (296) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove alias squids (0) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove alias decapodiforme (0) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove implication colossal_squid (2) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove implication giant_squid (53) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove implication glass_squid (1) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove implication humboldt_squid (5) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove implication japanese_flying_squid (1) -> decapodiform (2026)
remove alias sea_ray (0) -> batoid (9)
remove alias ray_(fish) (926) -> batoid (9)
remove implication batoid (9) -> fish (80861)
remove implication eagle_ray (12) -> batoid (9)
remove implication manta_ray (694) -> batoid (9)
remove implication sawfish (11) -> batoid (9)
remove implication skate_(fish) (3) -> batoid (9)
remove implication stingray (572) -> batoid (9)

Reason: My previous animal BUR focused mostly on land-based BURs, so let's give the marine animals some attention. All the same logic still applies: these tags are nothing but unintuitive and make navigating the site more difficult than necessary for no benefit. As always, these first parts involve unimplying/unaliasing, part 2 involves reconnecting the dots.

This BUR contains sirenian (sea cow), decapodiform (squid), and batoid (sea ray or ray (fish)).

To be clear, I'm not religiously glued to any of these (including the BURs below), and I want to stress that I'm only an avid user who knows nothing about zoology beyond Google. If there's a valid reason that a tag should keep its current name or point to another name, I'll update the BUR(s) as needed.

Edit: the people have spoken, and I've removed sirenian from this BUR.

EDIT: The bulk update request #7432 (forum #399737) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7433 is active.

Reason: This BUR features lamniform (mackerel shark), lamnid (white shark), and mosasauroid (mosasaur)

EDIT: The bulk update request #7433 (forum #399738) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7434 is active.

Reason: This BUR features paracanthurus (god there are too many names to choose from) and ostraciid (god there are too many names to choose from)

acanthurid is also on thin ice

EDIT: The bulk update request #7434 (forum #399739) has been approved by @Cinder.

Other notes:

- The pinniped and seal are the same but also kind of not, Wikipedia was confusing about this
- We may be able to get away with aliasing physeteroid to sperm whale
- Why is acipenseriformes using the plural form for its tag unlike every other tag?
- crinoid looks almost changeable, but sea lily and feather star refer to different forms of the same creature (kind of like pigeons and doves, I think. Maybe a split is better?)

strikerman said:
Other notes:

- The pinniped and seal are the same but also kind of not, Wikipedia was confusing about this

Seals (Phocidae) are a subgroup of pinnipeds, along with sea lions (Otariidae), and walruses (Otobenidae). Some sea lions are called fur seals, which might be what's confusing.

Sirenian is a fairly common term, like pinniped, and sea cow feels pretty colloquial to me.

I'm going to bring up sand_dollar again here, we had a bit of discussion on it previously but I'm not sure we ever figured out what we wanted to do with it.

strikerman said:
This BUR contains sirenian (sea cow), decapodiform (squid), and batoid (sea ray or ray (fish)).

I suggest going with ray_(fish) as Wikipedia does. Apparently, Sea Ray is a manufacturer of motorboats. :\

Reason: This BUR features paracanthurus (god there are too many names to choose from)...

Common names for the Paracanthurus genus include regal tang, palette surgeonfish, blue tang (leading to confusion with the Atlantic species Acanthurus coeruleus), royal blue tang, hippo tang, blue hippo tang, flagtail surgeonfish, Pacific regal blue tang, and blue surgeonfish. This fish is basically what Dory from Finding Nemo is. I don't recommend blue_tang since that can also refer to the Atlantic blue tang (as the snippet from Wikipedia I copied over says). Would regal_tang work? Would royal_blue_tang be better? Would any of the other names be preferred?

... and ostraciid (god there are too many names to choose from)

Common names for the Ostracidae family include boxfishes, cofferfishes, cowfishes, and trunkfishes. What say you we use boxfish in the place of ostraciid?

acanthurid is also on thin ice

These guys are surgeonfishes, tangs, and unicornfishes. They include the above regal tang/royal blue tang. How about we replace it with surgeonfish?

Other notes:

- The pinniped and seal are the same but also kind of not, Wikipedia was confusing about this

Pinnipeds are basically true seals, furred seals, sea lions, and walruses, as pleaseletmein says above. The difference between true seals and sea lions/furred seals is that the latter have external ears and can walk on land after a fashion. I suggest we go with pinniped -> seal and use true_seal for the phocids.

- We may be able to get away with aliasing physeteroid to sperm whale

That's probably a safe bet. There are three physeteroid species, but the likelihood of someone actually making a dwarf sperm whale or pygmy sperm whale character, while possible, is pretty low.

- Why is acipenseriformes using the plural form for its tag unlike every other tag?

Who knows? They're sturgeons and paddlefishes, both of which are already valid tags. We could just remove acipenseriformes and imply sturgeon and paddlefish to either fish or ray-finned_fish which itself would implicate fish. There is an actinopterygii tagged on one post which might to be aliased to ray-finned_fish which could then be expanded with all the other families of ray-finned fish.

- crinoid looks almost changeable, but sea lily and feather star refer to different forms of the same creature (kind of like pigeons and doves, I think. Maybe a split is better?)

That's kind of like the different forms of some Pokémon, such as Shaymin. Perhaps sea_lily_[s]forme[/s]_crinoid and feather_star_[s]forme[/s]_crinoid?

clawstripe said:
Pinnipeds are basically true seals, furred seals, sea lions, and walruses, as pleaseletmein says above. The difference between true seals and sea lions/furred seals is that the latter have external ears and can walk on land after a fashion. I suggest we go with pinniped -> seal and use true_seal for the phocids.

Pinniped is also used for fictional species like primarina and popplio, which shouldn't be tagged as real animals like "seal". Granted deer and bat are already making a mess there with cervid and chiropteran already being aliased like that, but the rules for tagging pokemon haven't changed.

clawstripe said:
Pinnipeds are basically true seals, furred seals, sea lions, and walruses, as pleaseletmein says above. The difference between true seals and sea lions/furred seals is that the latter have external ears and can walk on land after a fashion. I suggest we go with pinniped -> seal and use true_seal for the phocids.

I strongly disagree with this, nobody calls sea lions and walruses seals.

watsit said:
Pinniped is also used for fictional species like primarina and popplio, which shouldn't be tagged as real animals like "seal". Granted deer and bat are already making a mess there with cervid and chiropteran already being aliased like that, but the rules for tagging pokemon haven't changed.

Why would changing the name of these tags suddenly mean Pokemon are no longer allowed? It's literally the same tag.

nimphia said:
Why would changing the name of these tags suddenly mean Pokemon are no longer allowed? It's literally the same tag.

From the news post on Oct 18, 2017: https://e621.net/news_updates

October 18th: Since it has come up recently: Please do not tag Pokémon or Digimon as their real world counterparts, but only as the family. Eg persian is not a cat but a feline, renamon is not a fox but a canine, etc.

This is purely to ensure that actual "real" animals can be found without having all those fantasy animals show up as well.

kyiiel said:
From the news post on Oct 18, 2017: https://e621.net/news_updates

Whoever wrote that news post doesn't know much about taxonomy lol. "Deer" is not a species, it's the common name of the cervid family, it's fine.

Hate to do an Um Akshually and maybe this is fine anyway but just putting it out there: squid and decapodiform are not synonymous (for example cuttlefish are decapodiforms and don't seem to be considered squid)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapodiformes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid

kyiiel said:
From the news post on Oct 18, 2017: https://e621.net/news_updates

Yes... From 2017... And "deer" isn't a specific species, it's just the common name for a group of species.

wandering_spaniel said:
Hate to do an Um Akshually and maybe this is fine anyway but just putting it out there: squid and decapodiform are not synonymous (for example cuttlefish are decapodiforms and don't seem to be considered squid)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapodiformes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid

so why were they merged together in the first place ;-;

I'd be fine creating an implication chain, coleoid -> decapodiform -> squid -> etc.

While we're here, thoughts on whale being merged to cetacean? I want to fix this (I know dolphins are taxonomically whales but nobody in common parlance calls them whales), I'm just not sure how...

strikerman said:
While we're here, thoughts on whale being merged to cetacean? I want to fix this (I know dolphins are taxonomically whales but nobody in common parlance calls them whales), I'm just not sure how...

I think some informal groupings are ok for convenience's sake such as jackal, fox, and badger. All of these are in line with Wikipedia and so are whales as an informal group
Imo wikipedia is the best source to imitate for taxonomy tags

The whale tag would imply cetacean and include all species Wikipedia lists on their whale page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale

personally I'm fine with keeping some words like cetacean and pinneped as is when they're the best word for the job and there's not really a great alternative.

sipothac said:
personally I'm fine with keeping some words like cetacean and pinneped as is when they're the best word for the job and there's not really a great alternative.

this ^, it's the same thing as canid, equid, etc.

(and I think sirenian falls under this as well)

sipothac said:
personally I'm fine with keeping some words like cetacean and pinneped as is when they're the best word for the job and there's not really a great alternative.

pleaseletmein said:
this ^, it's the same thing as canid, equid, etc.

(and I think sirenian falls under this as well)

To be clear I didn't mean to erase cetacean entirely, just split whale out of it.

wandering_spaniel said:
Hate to do an Um Akshually and maybe this is fine anyway but just putting it out there: squid and decapodiform are not synonymous (for example cuttlefish are decapodiforms and don't seem to be considered squid)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapodiformes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid

Yeah, but squid is the closest informal name covering most of decapodiform, so i'm fine with sweeping it under the rug. It's like how octopodiform is aliased to octopus despite it containing vampire squid
Nope I imagined that octopodiform got aliased away; it currently parallels strikerman's suggested implication tree

strikerman said:
To be clear I didn't mean to erase cetacean entirely, just split whale out of it.

We currently have whale aliased to cetacean. However, whales come in two overall categories which are both tagged here and implicate cetacean, the filter-feeding baleen whales such as the blue whale and humpbackedwhale, and the toothed whales like sperm whales and, strange as it might seem, dolphins and porpoises. In that regard, whale is basically a synonym of cetaceans in general, and aliasing it away to cetacean is arguably less confusing than trying to differentiate dolphins and porpoises from other toothed whales. I'd argue the current setup is fine here, especially since the common User of e621 is likely going to know what a cetacean is and would be more confused at using whale in its place.

wandering_spaniel said:
Whoever wrote that news post doesn't know much about taxonomy lol. "Deer" is not a species, it's the common name of the cervid family, it's fine.

Ironically, the move to terms like "deer" and "bat" was to move away from being so technically-accurate to taxonomy, which most people don't fully understand and this site isn't meant to act as a taxonomy guide, and use more recognizable terms with their colloquial meanings. Which still breaks tags like deer since treating deer=cervid means animals like moose imply deer, but I don't know anyone that would point to a moose and say "that's a deer", unlike a chital or barasingha that most people would.

watsit said:
Ironically, the move to terms like "deer" and "bat" was to move away from being so technically-accurate to taxonomy, which most people don't fully understand and this site isn't meant to act as a taxonomy guide, and use more recognizable terms with their colloquial meanings. Which still breaks tags like deer since treating deer=cervid means animals like moose imply deer, but I don't know anyone that would point to a moose and say "that's a deer", unlike a chital or barasingha that most people would.

Oh I don't really see an issue with that personally, it's still fully accurate to taxonomy since deer just straight up is the common name for the cervid family, they are fully synonyms. Some people not knowing that moose are in the deer family is ok with me because it takes about 1 second to learn and I think it's nice when e6 can teach people new things. Imo for taxonomy tags we should prefer common names as long as they are still accurate, but that it's fine to fall back to scientific names when there is no synonymous common name (like cetacean for example).

(of course that's all Just Like, My Opinion Man, etc)

watsit said:
Ironically, the move to terms like "deer" and "bat" was to move away from being so technically-accurate to taxonomy, which most people don't fully understand and this site isn't meant to act as a taxonomy guide, and use more recognizable terms with their colloquial meanings. Which still breaks tags like deer since treating deer=cervid means animals like moose imply deer, but I don't know anyone that would point to a moose and say "that's a deer", unlike a chital or barasingha that most people would.

Most people I know recognize moose as deer. Even wikipedia refers to them as a species of deer.

The bulk update request #7433 (forum #399738) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7797 is active.

Reason: Follow-up to BUR #7433.

EDIT: The bulk update request #7797 (forum #402615) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7797 (forum #402615) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7434 (forum #399739) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7798 is active.

Reason: Follow-up to BUR #7434.

EDIT: The bulk update request #7798 (forum #402618) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7798 (forum #402618) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7432 (forum #399737) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7799 is active.

create alias decapodiforme (0) -> decapodiform (2026)
create alias squids (0) -> squid (296)
create implication squid (296) -> decapodiform (2026)
create implication colossal_squid (2) -> squid (296)
create implication giant_squid (53) -> squid (296)
create implication glass_squid (1) -> squid (296)
create implication humboldt_squid (5) -> squid (296)
create implication japanese_flying_squid (1) -> squid (296)
create alias sea_ray (0) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create alias batoid (9) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create implication ray_(fish) (926) -> fish (80861)
create implication eagle_ray (12) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create implication manta_ray (694) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create implication sawfish (11) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create implication skate_(fish) (3) -> ray_(fish) (926)
create implication stingray (572) -> ray_(fish) (926)

Reason: Follow-up to BUR #7432.

EDIT: The bulk update request #7799 (forum #402622) has been approved by @Cinder.

The bulk update request #7799 (forum #402622) has been approved by @Cinder.