Talk:Animal/Archive 1

In the first sentence, I would not deem 'metazoan' a simple word.
If its not deemed necesary to write plants are not animals on the plant page why does it say animals are not plants here

Merge?

Well, no. Animalia is a formal taxonomic term, and is reached by link from taxoboxes. Animal is a general essay, supposedly suitable for beginning students who are not familiar with the subject. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:14, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I just did a merge, since the tag had been on there for ages, but have reverted myself after seeing this. I don't think we need a separate article just for the taxonomic group. The scopes are way too similar: taxonomy is and would still need to be covered on both articles, in summary form. We already go into detail about biological classification on List of animal phyla. There are 183 other language versions covering this topic, and we're the only one to separate them. At the moment, Animal is linked from over 2,500 pages, including most of our taxoboxes, while Animalia is linked from a little under 500 pages. Is anyone creating the links really going to consider whether it's better to link to Animal or Animalia? And what do we think the reader is expecting to find when they click on a link to [[Animalia|Animal]] or [[Animal]]ia...? Do they want to read about animals or taxonomy? Osiris (talk) 03:19, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Since all species in Animalia are, by definition, animals, I would support merging Animalia into this article and putting important information into a subsection titled "Animalia". TCN7JM 01:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not wedded to either page, and will try a merge. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:09, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Yup I would merge. -DJSasso (talk) 13:21, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for the help! That looks great, Mac. Osiris (talk) 20:20, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

But Is It Really In Simple English?

This article is beautiful. But is it in Simple English? I see the word "eukaryotic" right away. If my command of English is not very good, I would not be happy. One definition is "an organism composed of one or more cells with clearly viewable nuclei". This is better, but cells have to be explained (simply) and a simple expansion is needed for "nuclei" (explaining microscopes, probably). I'm sure it can be done; just takes more work than simply overlooking the scientific words. If there is an audience for the Simple WP, then such expansion may be very worthwhile. David spector (talk) 20:19, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn't answer this user at the time, but we have generally agreed that as Simple English was invented before modern science (and by someone who was not even then a scientist) it must be extended to cover modern science and technology. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:57, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Zoo?

I think it is of interest that there is a writing here for "animal" but in Basic English there can be no writing (or even the word) "Zoo"! Yes, I know Simple English is not Basic English. Just saying... David spector (talk) 22:07, 30 November 2017 (UTC)