Talk:Elsepeth

I'm putting this question here because it's a good example, but it's a question that impacts the entire wiki. What's our rule for categorizing things? Specifically, should a page be in:

• a) the lowest-level category possible?

or

• b) should it be in ALL levels of category?

Example: Elsepeth is currently in Category:Demons,Category:Fiend, and Category:Outsider. But shouldn't she also be in Category:Monster and Category:NPC as well (option b)? OR rather, should she ONLY be in Category:Demons (which should actually be Category:Demon, but let's move on for the moment.) Since all Demons are Fiends and all Fiends are Outsiders and all Monsters, Demons is the lowest-level subcategory. (option a) For the record, this (option a) is how wikipedia does it.

What's the difference? you may ask. Well, it impacts how the category pages look, whether Elsepeth appears on the Category:Fiend page, for example. And it impacts how the pages themselves look (which categories appear on the bottom of the page.) While it is kind of nice to see all the Fiends on the category page, it's kind of overwhelming to see all the monsters on the Category:Monster page, isn't it?

(Whether all Monsters are NPCs is another question, by the way. My opinion: no. NPC should be a label applied to specific individuals, which can be in addition to a creature-type. Plains Cat should be a monster, but not an NPC, for example. And if Monster were a subcategory of NPC, it would be. All creature species should however be subset of Monster, which might have to be renamed to Creature or something like that. (lest regular Humans be called Monsters. Which is OK for Vlad Drakov, but kinda weird for Van Richten, no?)

Discuss.... -- Gonzoron 15:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Not really to provide any answers, but take animals, especially of the (mostly) inoffensive type. Given a druid's relation to them and the existence of spells to summon them, they deserve their own category, not to mention on natural philosophy grounds. Now it indeed does seem strange putting, e.g., the wholly inoffensive Vaassi garter snake under both Monster and Animal, but much less so with a Wolf.

Equally, the Gentleman Caller, may be a monster and he is an instance of an incubbus, but it seems strange to put him, an individual, under monster, whereas it seems right to list him as both a fiend and a demon.

Perhaps there is a question of excess running about here. The monster list is so long, or will become so long, that it is not very useful. Whereas the fiend list will be sufficiently short that it is just convenient to see fiends of all types, without/before exploring them in terms of their alignment/nature.

I'm of the opinion that "monsters" and "NPC's" are mutually exclusive. That is, an individual is an NPC, even if it is of a species (and category) listed under Monster. DeepShadow 03:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)