Category talk:Lists of fictional animals

Untitled
For a bit of discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Categorization, topic "More on category piping, alphabetic headers, page organization". Elf | Talk 16:16, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

category naming

 * shouldn't this category be named "fictional animals" instead of "list of fictional animals"? After all, a category page is a list and so, therefore a category page named "list of.." is somewhat redundant. --Mecanismo 01:53, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Well this is a list of lists so I'd say the name is appropriate. Deathawk 23:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

adding a list to this list of lists

 * I cannot figure out how do add or edit a list on this page. When I click "edit page", I do not get the list itself. Please direct me to instructions for editing this kind of page.

supercategory
Removed this from Category:lists of fictional species because these are real species, but imaginary animals. Added instead to Category:lists of fictional characters. Matchups 03:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem with term "fictional"
In a number of these lists of fictional animals, mythological, legendary and folkloric animals have been added. For example, the List of fictional birds article and the List of fictional cats as well as others lists include animals from mythology, legend and folklore. This is currently the standard practice in these articles but I can see how this can be a problem for some people. Some cultures/religions believe and have believed that these animals are real so there may be a problem with calling them "fictional" because that implies they don't actually exist and this can be construed as expressing a particular POV. It would be possible to create lists of animals in mythology, legend and folklore but this would create new problems. For example, should animals mentioned in the Bible be categorized as fictional or mythological? The Bible can be regarded as literature and therefore animals like Noah's dove or the serpent in the Garden of Eden belong in the list of fictional animals. However, the Bible can also be regarded as religion and therefore these animals do not belong on this list. This is true in many cases when particular texts (Jewish, Christian, Hindu, pagan, etc.) can be regarded as either a work of literature (fiction) or as a religions text (nonfiction to believers). To get around this difficulty, I think that a different term than "fictional" should be used to describe these lists. This term should encompass both fictional (as in characters from literature, film, etc.) and mythological/legendary/folkloric animals. I'm not sure what term would work and any ideas would be appreciated. If this issue has been discussed before, please link to that page.-Schnurrbart (talk) 01:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)