Is this really necessary, I went to some effort last week to sort out the species and races and cultures categories - humanoid is a biological qualifier, therefore the Category:Humanoid species exists to list them, species being a biological distinction as opposed to races and cultures which can qualified by numerous other means. Same for the telepathic species category. --8of5 06:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
And, yes, species is one of those qualifiers for races and cultures, which is why it (and it's subcategories, such as humanoid and telepathic) is listed under the races and cultures category already. --8of5 06:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
- I wasn't 100% aware of the other humanoid category -- I picked this name because, like other things, various species have separate articles for individual races and cultures that make them up. I've never seen a clear definition of what the difference is, probably would need further citation of the definitions of these words to know where we stand, which I haven't done. Sorry if I'm crossing over into something you're working on. -- Captain MKB 01:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
The definition seems pretty clear to me, a humanoid is a biological classification of a species with similar characteristics to humans - bipedal, typically two arms, a head on top, stands roughly upright. Whether a species is humanoid is a purely biological factor. Now if that species has ethnic groups, or works alongside other species in some larger group, those would be cultural things, irrespective of the biology. And a species as a whole can also identify itself as a culture. But there is still the purely scientific biological distinction of what is a species on top of whatever cultural affiliation that might go with it.
I admit there is some grey area because very often in Star Trek a species is approached as a homogenised culture as well. What I did the other week was go through all the listings in races and cultures categories and species categories and make sure they were all sorted to one uniform system. Rather than the previous mess of some only being in species cats and some being in new races and cultures cats. The system is roughly this:
- Races and cultures
- Alpha Quadrant races and cultures
- Beta Quadrant races and cultures
- Alpha or Beta Quadrant races and cultures
- Delta Quadrant races and cultures
- Gamma Quadrant races and cultures
- Dominion races and cultures
- Federation races and cultures
- Mirror universe races and cultures
- Ancient cultures
- Ethnic groups
- Human cultures
- Genetically engineered races and cultures - This one seems more in that grey area, but most of the entrants in it represent small groups of beings that don't seem numerous or distinct enough to be classified as a species.
- Species - Also listed in the biology category, so functions as a sub-category of both the sciences and cultural mega-categories.
- Humanoid species
- Non-humanoid species
- Telepathic species
- Cosmozoans
- Animals
- Plants
- Telepathic species
I listed every race and culture in the main races and cultures category, any with a known quadrant are also listed in those sub-cats, any known also to be a species are listed there, sub-divided into humanoid or non-humanoid if it's known.
I decided not to repeat the quadrant sub-cats in species because any sentient species is already listed in the quadrant races and cultures sub-cats and it seemed unnecessarily repetitive. --8of5 05:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)