Template talk:Infobox Species

Pointless parameters
I really don't see the point of the "kingdom= |phylum= |class= |order= |family= |genus= |species= " part of the template. I guess it's fun little useless fancy information about each animal type, but otherwise, any real reason to have it? 15:01, March 7, 2015 (EST)
 * Doubtful. The pages about species are most useful as lists, so an infobox wouldn't be very helpful in that case. 12:57, March 8, 2015 (EDT)
 * Anyone else has other thoughts? I do agree that the pages about the species are extremely short and simply list who's who. 19:39, March 23, 2015 (EDT)

Overlap
Currently, the 300px species picture overlaps the right border of the TD it is in (at least in Firefox and Vivaldi). It seems there are some extra pixels unaccounted for on top of padding. The picture looks about centered if the table is widened to 330px so that's 10 pixels which come from somewhere. I couldn't pinpoint where from with a quick look with the inspector, sorry. Melicent (talk) 06:47, January 21, 2021 (EST)
 * I've gone ahead and done a text replace to change them all from 300px to 275px, which should fix the overlap issue. ~ AlexBot2004  ( Talk ) 20:12, January 23, 2021 (EST)

Axe the "Scientific classification" and "Conservation status" parts
I know there's already a discussion about this above, but that was back in 2015 and it went absolutely nowhere, so I thought it would be better to make a new thread rather than just continue a dead one.

I really don't see a need in having the real-world info on this infobox, for three reasons:


 * 1) The "Scientific classification" part is just pure speculation, no matter how obvious some of the real-life info is. For example, the infobox for the Wolf species only goes down to the Canis genus, but there's still a likelihood that the Wolf villagers are supposed to be based specifically on the gray wolf (Canis lupus). You could argue this is due to some wolf villagers being based on other species of the Canis genus, but this argument is rather moot anyway since one wolf, Kyle, is often cited as being based on an, which are not in the Canis genus, but rather the Lycaon genus. Even disregarding that, to give another example, the infobox for the Ostrich species specifically points to it being the common ostrich (Struthio camelus), even though the species appears to just be a general representation of ostriches rather than being based on one specific species alone (not to mention most Ostriches are clearly based on birds that aren't even in the same scientific Order as ostriches, anyway).
 * 2) Although this is an English wiki, it is still important to point out that some species were categorized as completely different species in the original Japanese versions than in the localized versions (e.g. the racccoons were originally tanuki and the kappas were changed to turtles). This, however, creates a problem with how we should present the real-world info for both species on their infoboxes. The infoboxes for the Raccoon and Turtle pages still use the info that's based on their Japanese species (tanuki and kappa, respectively) rather than their localized species, and while we could just change the info to that of their localized species, this also adds another problem of blatantly ignoring the info of their intended species by the developers in their native language (Japanese). Even if we do resolve that issue, it would look very messy visual-wise. The biggest problem, however, is that there is still one species in particular that just cannot be accommodated for: the kappa, which, due to being a species that exists purely in mythology/folklore, cannot be eligible for having real-life info.
 * 3) As far as I'm aware, there is no info like this in the games themselves or any other official media. This just seems like something from the old days of the Wiki where it wasn't quite as keen on being as official-focused to the series as possible. Even if it does have some educational value, the only crowd this info might be remotely useful for is those who are really into this kind of stuff, and they can just find said info on Wikipedia or plenty of other places, anyway.

So yeah, that's everything I have to say. If you have any disagreements or even more points to back up my claims, feel free to put them down. The Jacketed   Terrapin  03:56, October 28, 2021 (EDT)


 * I think it's significant that the games have always included some scientific realism through the information provided with museum donations. New Horizons expands this even further with villagers referencing their species's evolution around the museum's tree of life design.-- Mister E  13  23:36, October 28, 2021 (EDT)


 * Although I fathom with the idea of having a specified classification for each species, I would axing them entirely. They're not there to give much into detail regarding the species, and if I'm to be honest, it's by far the least developed in terms of infobox standards.. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 01:51, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * per Jacketed Terrapin. With neither scientific classification or conservation status being mentioned in-game, removing them is best to avoid any sort of speculation and the differences between languages. They don't really help the reader understand the game, and if anything, can actually confuse readers by conveying that conservation status is somehow a gameplay element. If the reader does want to learn about the species in real life, they can head to Wikipedia (and with that being said, I don't think I'd mind linking to Wikipedia in the infobox, or an external links section). ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 02:26, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * I removing the classifications per the above and adding links to Wikipedia per SuperHamster. ~  AlexBot2004  ( Talk ) 11:33, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * - I agree that this information is purely speculative and not particularly helpful or useful to the reader and at worst downright confusing or misleading. I would be in support of adding a wikipedia link and moving it to the bottom of the infobox, similar to the strategywiki links on game pages. Also just as a reference, there was some discussion of this last year at Nookipedia talk:Project Museum in reference to real-world info in the critter infoboxes and on article pages. Sunmarshsignature.png  ( talk )  13:21, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * I'm in favour of removing it, the bulk of it isn't accurate, though I think MisterE13 makes a fair point about the evolution exhibit in the museum indicating an in-game scientific recognition of the villager species in the game. I think the Ostrich/Kyle argument is largely irrelevant as the games have always referred to the villagers as the same general species despite their appearance (heck, some of them aren't even organic), and their design inspirations are simply an individual matter that can be covered in their own articles. In my opinion, the most straightforward solution would be to follow the precedent already set with the critter articles and just simplify this info to the basic scientific species name that links to the corresponding Wikipedia article.
 * Failing that, I'd like to see some relevant information replace it rather than just have nothing but a big grid of numbers. I'm not sure exactly what form this should take though. ID prefixes? Height/size compared to the player? Or maybe indicating whether it's a land, aquatic, air species, or whether it's based on a living/extinct/mythical creature, or which variants are represented, or just something. --Shark HHD Icon.png  Dorsal Axe  (talk) 15:19, October 29, 2021 (EDT)
 * Ooh I like the idea of having a size comparison to the player. Maybe we could make images with silhouettes like this. ~ AlexBot2004  ( Talk ) 20:10, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * I was just about to suggest the idea of giving each species pages the same "Real-world information" sections as the bugs and fish, but somebody already beat me to it. :P I also noticed the Raccoon page has a whole section dedicated to explaining some of the elements in the Animal Crossing series that are based on or allude to the depiction of tanuki in Japanese mythology, yet no other special species that are clearly inspired by mythological Japanese creatures (fox, kappa, and tapir, maybe more that I'm not aware of) have info like this on their pages. Should we also include info like this on those pages should Dorsal Axe's idea of "real-world info" get approved? Snapping Turtle NH Icon.pngThe Jacketed   Terrapin Soft-Shelled Turtle NH Icon.png 15:49, October 29, 2021 (EDT)
 * Moving the information out of the infobox into a real world section seems like a good idea to me too. That kind of section might also be able to go into more detail on the multiple species that inspired individual characters and maybe any biological/evolutionary details that are included in the game through the museum. As for pertinent game information to include in the infobox, we could include images of their footprints from New Horizons. Additionally, I recently saw some dialog in NH where a normal cow villager was looking in the mirror and mentioned her horns. I imagine other species have features they can talk about like this which I think could be interesting species-wide data which is canon to the game.-- Mister E  13  17:53, October 29, 2021 (EDT)


 * I suggest using critter/fish pages as templates for species pages i.e. 1) add a 'real-world info' label to the infobox 2) keep the infobox info short and simple (maybe class and family) 3) keep other info for a 'real-world information' section down the page. This would also make pages more consistent. Links to Wikipedia are not used consistently (some infoboxes have them, others don't) but sure. The Salmon page is a good example of what I mean I think. Melicent (talk) 07:23, November 27, 2021 (EST)