Talk:Tripedalism

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Untitled
This article is linked from Terrestrial locomotion in animals which claims the Kangaroo is tripedal (using it's tale??)


 * OK I've just completed a big overhaul of the article (though I may think of more to do), hope everyone thinks the alterations are OK. I also added in that bit about Kangaroos too. --Hibernian 02:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

DAK?
Would someone with a double above-knee amputation have a tripedal gait? (left hand + right hand, then bottom) --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 03:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What about R2D2?
Or do you only relate to organisms? 89.139.62.78 (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Move to Tripedalism
The far more developed and documented articles: Bipedalism Quadrupedalism

Both have redirects from bipedal, quadrupedal, biped, and quadruped. I suggest Tripedal be moved to Tripedalism with a redirect to match the others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecnassianer (talk • contribs) 01:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Should this entry contain a section on tripedal animals in mythology and folklore (and perhaps even fiction)?
A long-standing (if not particularly well structured) section on tripedal animals in myth, folklore and fiction was recently deleted from this entry (26 July, 2022) by User:Di (they-them) on the basis that it was "trivia/unrelated content." I reverted the edit on 24 August, 2022, giving the justification that "Tripedalism is more prevalent in myth and folklore than in biology; accordingly, the deleted section is neither 'unrelated content' nor trivia." The restored section was then promptly re-deleted by User:Di (they-them) on the basis that "This article is about the biological concept, not fiction. Just because the concept appears in myth and fiction does not make it relevant to the article about the concept."

I don't understand this logic. If the article is about the concept of tripedalism, as claimed by User:Di (they-them), and they accept that there are well-known instances of this concept in myth, then surely it is appropriate for the entry to contain a section on tripedal animals in mythology and folklore (and perhaps even in science fiction)?

Nowhere does the text of the entry say that content must be confined to real-world biological instances of tripedalism. On the other hand, the first sentence defines tripedalism as "locomotion by the use of three legs", which makes me think that text added on 3 June, 2022, by User:Di (they-them) about parrots using their beaks as a "third limb" has less right to be included here than material on mythological animals endowed with three actual legs. I'm happy to retain the parrot material provided we also retain the mythological/folkloric material, but if we're going to apply an ultra-literal filter that excludes anything other than real-world tripedalism, then I fail to see why parrots - which patently do not have three legs - should be discussed here while culturally significant three-legged creatures like the Jin Chan and Three-legged crow are deliberately ignored.

Rather than persist with a futile edit war, I am raising the disagreement for discussion here. What do others think? LloydGraham (talk) 09:02, 25 August 2022 (UTC)


 * See "In popular culture" content. I personally see the section in the article as trivial, including things of minor significance in a list format. Di (they-them) (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The WP "in popular culture" guidelines to which you refer are primarily concerned with ephemeral mentions of the topic at hand (here, tripedalism or three-legged animals) in today's media - TV, cinema, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites, video-games, etc. It doesn't relate to what I am talking about, which is the presence of specific three-legged animals in established mythology and folklore. Some of these creatures even have WP entries in their own right.
 * I agree that the previous list format was sub-optimal; I did say that the section wasn't well structured. It seems to have grown organically as people made individual contributions to it. I'm happy to write a short prose section titled "Tripedal animals in mythology and folklore" so long as you agree not to delete it. LloydGraham (talk) 22:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Further to my earlier comments, I would like to point out that the WP entry Unipedalism has a large list-based section titled "In fiction and mythology", since this is primarily where instances of the phenomenon are found. The same is true of tripedalism, so there should be a corresponding section here. LloydGraham (talk) 04:59, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * In January 2024, a User misrepresented the WP:SELFCITE policy to justify deleting the entire “Tripedalism in mythology, folklore and fiction” sub-section (which was added in 2022) without first discussing the proposed deletion here. As their various User accounts have now been removed from Wikipedia, I have taken the WP:BOLD step of restoring the deleted section and am flagging that reversion here. For transparency, the sub-section does contain one self-citation of an academic review paper, but the mentions of tripedal creatures in science fiction and RPGs were first contributed by others and were merely reformatted by me in line with what was discussed and (I hope) agreed above. The online review paper, which has been accessed over 30,000 times, has been cited in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Diapasón and the Journal of Comparative Cultural Studies in Architecture, two Masters theses (Sweden, Italy), and at least six culture/mythology/symbolism websites (all details available on request). Please review the reversion and comment here if you have any concerns about it. LloydGraham (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Heinlein
Pretty sure Heinlein's martians were tripedal. -- Cimon Avaro&#59; on a pogostick. (talk) Cimon Avaro&#59; on a pogostick. (talk) 04:44, 28 May 2024 (UTC)