Talk:Tremarctinae

Stubbie

it's no longer a re-direct. have fun ;) - Metanoid (talk, email) 07:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME

Hey everyone. As per the article move discussion on Arctodus, the suggestion was made by @Ortizesp: that this article be moved to the common name for tremarctine bears, being the term "short-faced bear". While I argued that at the very least the term "short-faced bear" was shared with other tremarctines, usage for Tremarctinae as a whole is more mixed. Looking through Wikipedia though, I can see at least two examples where lesser-known extinct fauna with a wide range of different (sometimes individually better known) genera are given a general common name title instead of a scientific one (Glyptodont and Gomphothere), so frankly, I feel there is enough justification to move this article to the title "Short-faced bear". What are other people's opinions? SuperTah (talk) 01:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see that a move is warranted, given that most people would probably come here via taxonomy templates (which of course don't use common names), and that very few people refer to the living species as "short-faced bear". That, and most articles about higher-level taxa aren't under the common name. Would you move, say, Caninae?03:07, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

@Sumanuil: Yes and no... checking through the page views, it would seem that the Tremarctinae page's views jumped after we did the Short-faced bear -> Arctodus move. While I agree that some people may be clicking through the taxonomy template, when one searches up 'short-faced bear' on Google, this page now appears as the second result. This is I think in part, due to people looking for other members of the subfamily, 'Arctotherium' in particular, now having a better search result when looking up SFB, which bolsters the idea that SFB may be a better title. Someone clicks onto the taxonomy template, it takes them to the article. Someone searches up SFB, it also takes them to the article. Someone searches up 'Tremarctinae', they almost certainly know that SFB is the common name of the subfamily. Seems to me like a win-win-win.

I'm guessing the hypothetical move would be to 'Canine'? Caninae encompasses a wide variety of canids, which could cause confusion as 'canine' is usually restricted to domestic dogs. Even though it's not necessarily the dominant term to refer to the spectacled bear, SFB is commonly applied to the entire subfamily. I'm not sure how that article fits the bill better than Glyptodont and Gomphothere. Perhaps it's more common for higher-level extinct taxa to have common name Wiki articles. SuperTah (talk) 12:31, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Only, this is not an extinct taxon, and "glyptodont" and "gomphothere" are simply anglicisations of their scientific names. "Short-faced bear" is not. Then again, it is the common name of most of the subfamily. I'm just a stickler for consistency, and neither Ailuropodinae nor Ursinae is a redirect to a common name. Sumanuil. 20:08, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sumanuil: Yep that's my bad, I should have said mostly extinct! Regarding consistency, that's understandable... but looking through some other pages, I've found some which buck that trend.

Hyena: Yes, an anglicisation of a Greek common name, but the common name page includes the aardwolf, an animal not many at all would consider a hyena.

Ground sloth: A common name for an incredibly diverse array of animals, some of which are either more famous than that moniker (Megatherium) or which are not exactly ground sloths (Neocnus), but are also included in the article as "(t)he term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths."

Anteater: A name not only common to a couple of other unrelated genera, but which also includes the two Tamandua species, which have their own (admittedly anglicised) common name.

Seeing as this move would blend some elements of logic from each of these three rule benders, I think there is a case here. Grouping related animals under an intuitive common name serves us more good in highlighting their relatedness than sticking to purely taxonomic names- Wikipedia should blend that rigour with popular understanding and usage. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but neither Ailuropodinae nor Ursinae have a common name to redirect to, right? This isn't as pressing an issue as the clearly incorrectly applied SFB article name to Arctodus, but I'd consider this move worthwhile as well. SuperTah (talk) 02:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I guess a move would not be a bad thing, but it still doesn't seem necessary somehow. Sumanuil. 02:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)