Category talk:Humgii

As per the topic on the forums, I'll be reverting these to Category:Denizens again, but I want to hold off until we know whether Humgii should be both Denizen and Domesticated animal. Regardless of how Creatures' and Denizens' articles declare themselves mutually exclusive, I think Humgii are the exception. Just waiting on posts/comments here/there, that way we don't have to do twice as many edits... ~Soludra 04:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, technically speaking, that would open up quite a definitional conundrum... Asara 12:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Howso? I checked, and HELP DENIZENS makes it pretty clear that what we categorize here as creatures are still denizens. Maybe we should subcategorize Creatures under Denizens? ~Soludra 16:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I disagree. Way back when we originally discussed the difference between denizen and creature, we agreed that HELP DENIZENS did not undermine our description (ours, instead, perhaps clarifies it.). A worm can be a denizen certainly if it accepts tells and speaks, for example. Using sentience as the determining factor is straightfoward, easily verifiable, and seems to work clearly and well. Thus putting Creatures under Denizens would afford a property to beings we've categorized as creatures that is not true. Take a look at the Category:Denizens article for our working definition. Asara 17:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Aye, yet from HELP HUMGII: "Cute little animals with voracious appetites." Personally I'm not sure I see a problem with changing our definition of what Denizens are, unless it be the work involved. Don't a lot of people call pretty much everything non-adventurer a denizen anyways? ~Soludra 17:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Would you rather have Denizens be a subcategory of Creatures? I actually think that might work best. >_> ~Soludra 18:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

"Animals" does not mutually exclude sentience (sentience can be purchased for pets after all), and you would have to provide explanation for the tells contradiction (I refer to what Krypton provided) to fit your new definition. Similarly, public perception/lingo may not necessarily verify fact (e.g. everyone calling abilities "skills".) However, if you are interested in contesting/changing current established policy, please feel free to make a poll on the forums with these explanations. =) Asara 19:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

When I've figured out a convincing way to make my case, I will! :D And yes, the very fact that animals may be sentient is what I'm driving at here: Humgii are sentient yet HELP HUMGII calls them animals, two facts we cannot easily discard. ~Soludra 23:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact that humgiis are flagged as sentient is, in and of itself, probably a minor bug (barring cases in which organisational humgiis have progs that might be triggered by tells). They don't say anything on their own, and the default ones actually have signs around their necks to get their point across. On a somewhat related note, dolphins and unicorns are animals and flagged as sentient, but I would not be willing to classify them under Category:Denizen races. In fact, you'll note that the "Unicorns" article is specifically categorised in Category:Creatures. Classing all sentient creatures under a "Sentient creatures" category as I originally proposed, whether a "race" or not, would be ideal in my view. -Delphinus @ 00:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

For Soludra: I think that if you really wanted to take a serious crack at the current definition, you'd have to first discuss the matter of sentience before determining the Achaean connotations of "animal" with regards to sentience. I still don't quite see how the -possibility- of animals being sentient, when we know that not all animals are sentient, warrants categorizing all creatures as sentient, i.e. denizens. Under the current understanding, if you wanted to categorize denizens under creatures instead, humgii would still be categorized as denizens according to the "Lowest Common Denominator" category rule. Asara 00:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

For Delphinus: What of Maya's acknowledgment of humgii sentience? Also, if some unicorns are flagged as sentient, then that should be reflected by categorizing the unicorns article under denizens as well as creatures with our current policy. Unfortunately you'll also note that the working definition for the Denizen races category is differentiated from others via being "humanoid", so dolphins and unicorns would not be (and are not) classified under such already. Asara 00:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I had hoped to squeeze this in before a reply. If humgiis are sentient, the implication here is that nearly every player-run organisation (including Shallam) engages in slavery. And that's... really just silly, and a bad outcome overall in a lot of ways. Again - "Sentient creatures," which would fit the definition presented in HELP DENIZENS a whole lot better as well and would thus be fitting for the groups to which they belong. -Delphinus @ 00:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Bah, edit conflict. To the section for me, that's why I think changing the definition of Denizens to be less exclusive, so it encompasses both sentient and non-sentient beings. We would have Creatures and Sentient creatures (like Delphinus suggested) as subcategories, along with the current subcategories in Category:Denizens. ~Soludra 00:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's try to get a more formal proposal up (with all previous issues addressed) and discuss it on the forums. For the moment humgii are sentient, and changing that is not so much of a lore issue as it is one for Maya, so we would have to wait until that is settled before determining potential new definitions for 'denizen'. In regards to your suggestion of humgii slavery (which you've inferred to be true on the condition that they're sentient), that, as well as your condition, sounds like something fun to tackle ICly rather than here. Asara 00:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It actually doesn't sound fun at all. I'd rather pursue a legitimate line of conflict in-game than something that is ostensibly a matter of game mechanics, or an add-on that probably didn't receive much thought to begin with (because they didn't think people would pick it apart). -Delphinus @ 01:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I have edited my original Humgiis post on the forum, please read that and post there. :) ~Soludra 02:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

For Delphinus: Not that Asara would pursue it as the humgii have nothing to do with her, but I would, personally, reserve such judgments of "legitimacy" considering there have been enough leaps of cultural assumption in the discussion already. I'll try to get back to everyone about humgii sentience from the ooc perspective anyway, since you'd like to address it from that angle. Asara 03:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)