Talk:Raven/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Common Raven

I'm not certain moving all of the text to Common Raven is a good idea. That leaves pretty much nothing under this entry, and while the common raven is at the top of the links list, it's likely that most people would reach this page first. It might be a better idea to move the common raven page here, and keep the link list at the end of the article along with a note that 'raven' is also used to refer to members of these other species. At the very least, it seems to me that this page should discuss common characteristics and folklore — sort of like Fox does. Or maybe get rid of it completely and have 'Raven' redirect to 'Common Raven.' What's there now under 'Raven' just seems to needlessly complicate the search for information. Shimeru 08:58, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

I've added a comment that raven is used as synonym for Common Raven to point people towards that article. The folklore, literature etc I moved all refers to the Common Raven, and not to the group in general.

What other common characteristics are there apart from large, black and corvids? I don't think I moved any, please add any new ones.

There are numerous, often very short, articles at the genus or subgenus level, which serve a useful purpose in identifying the characteristics and members of the group.

merging the articles is a bad idea. A couple of years ago, it took ages to sort out the corvids, with species, genera and subgenera being confused and carry incorrect material. We have articles for jay, magpie etc, why not raven? jimfbleak 09:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm with Jim. After looking at the other raven species, its obvious that the only one the myths (and Poe) would logically have meant was the Common Raven, therefore the mythology is applicable there and only there. Foxes are a different case, because some of the myths could apply to many species of fox, so its best to keep the information on Fox. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|P M C]] 20:10, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough. I still think it's a bit convoluted, but I'll defer to your experience. Shimeru 23:57, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

My gut instinct was to separate the raven and crow into two separate groups, however, the more I've thought about it the less I feel that this is the correct path. There's no current data to suggest that Crows and Ravens make up separate groups within the genus Corvus. They're vernacular names that do not apply to distinct groups, only singular, unrelated species. The term raven should redirect to Common Raven since this is an accepted ornithological connection, or it should redirect to Corvus (genus). Since there is no single group or species that can be referred to as "crow" that term should instead redirect to genus. I've created a sandbox section of my user page to try and create a satisfactory genus page for corvus here: User:Plcoffey/SandboxCorvus (genus) any help is appreciated. Plcoffey (talk) 18:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Common Raven?

Is a raven common? The difference between a not-so-common and a common rave is, what? Are they referring to crows in the group as well? There is a difference between Ravens & Crows, their size and they have different shaped tails. So,why not omit the term "common" and stick with raven? Afterall, when doing my search (and I am a Librarian), the easiest search term and most common (joke intended) is "raven" the term "common" omitted.--66.42.119.127 01:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a difference between raven, the group of large corvids, which does not, incidentally, include the crows and rooks which share the genus, and Common Raven, which is a single species, Corvus corax. The latter on any reasonable basis is the most widespread and common of the group, occuring over most of the northern hemisphere.

If you merge the two articles, how will you distinguish the ravens as a group from the species Corvus corax? jimfbleak 06:18, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What about the talking raven, Thor, at the Tower of London? There is no mention of talking ravens on this page or the common raven page!

Well, what about Qouth the Raven then? Is he mentioned? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.105.91.13 (talk) 07:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Collective nouns

I removed the collective nouns from Raven and Lark for two reasons.

Firstly, even if correct, they do not apply to 'all Ravens and Larks, just Common Raven and Skylark. Secondly, these are made-up Victorian names that only appear on lists of collective nouns. As a birder of many years experience I have never heard either of these nouns actually used.

jimfbleak 05:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

That's your POV! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.47.176.236 (talk) 14:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

So there is a part of the article that talks about an obsolete collective noun, but what about those still in use? Garonyldas (talk) 02:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Australian ravens

I wonder if something should be said about the rather different usage of "raven" in Australia? As I understand it (see Australian Raven) the Australian ravens are related to other Australasian corvids such as the Torresian Crow rather than to the others bearing the name raven. In fact they are not even particularly big – the largest is about the size of a Carrion Crow. How about grouping them in the list, with a note to this effect? I'm not sure if the same applies to the New Zealand Raven etc. --Richard New Forest 11:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Crow

(Proposed-merge tag added to article by User:Zvika, 13:49, 6 December 2007. I've moved an earlier comment on the same subject from original place under "Raven vs Crow" to become first comment below. Also see various comments above under both #Common Raven? and #Common Raven, which so far look pretty much like a consensus for staying as-is. --Richard New Forest (talk) 15:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC))

Someone who's an expert on this should consider combining the Raven article with the Crow article, which both look to be quite similar and have a lot of overlap. Or that someone should explain what the difference is and why the pages are separate. (Unsigned comment by User:62.135.80.91,10:41, 21 February 2007)

My view is that Raven and Crow definitely deserve separate articles. Although somewhat similar birds, they do form two obvious groups within Corvus, and a combined article would have to spend a confusing amount of space dealing with each separately. I'm not so sure (as I raised above) that this applies for Australian "ravens", which seem to me to be more crows than ravens proper. However, I still don't think these belong in Crow, because it would be even more confusing to have "ravens" split into two articles. So keep the two articles separate, but have a separate section in Raven for the Aussie ones. --Richard New Forest (talk) 15:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I've removed my earlier statement and wish to revise my comment. I agree that Ravens and Crows are different animals, there are many species of both. However, they do not represent "two obvious groups within Corvus". There isn't any evidence to indicate that Crows are more related to one another than they are to ravens. In fact, as the latter part of Richard New Forest's statement suggests, animals that are in similar geographic areas are much more likely to be related. Since, in most literature, the epithet 'raven' denotes Corvus corax I think this page should redirect there, as I've stated above. Additionally, I've been working on a Corvus page that will encompass the entire genus, since neither 'crow' or 'raven' can accurately outline the whole group. Plcoffey (talk) 19:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Plcoffey – you just said in an edit summary for the article that "it has been agreed upon to merge this to corvus (genus))". Not quite sure that's the case... For myself, I don't think it's a good idea. I agree that there's a need for a Corvus article, and as I said above, it seems clear that not all birds called "raven" are related.

However, as far as I can see the Common Raven has several similar relatives, and the word "raven" applies generally to these. There are also other species or groups of species which bear the name, but which may not be closely related. We need to cover this somewhere. It could be in a section in Corvus, or it could be here. My feeling is that here would be preferable, and that the "Raven" section in Corvus ought to be brief, with a Main Article tag. --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

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