# Species List



## Jahgo (Dec 20, 2005)

Salutations all.

While submitting images on FA I've come to notice that a few notable species are absent from the selection list, and while I can understand that the site can't list _everything_ animal wise, these particular critters seem commonplace enough in furry art to justify mention:

Pigs/Warthogs
Gorillas
Pachyderms (rhinos, hippos, elephants)
Bovines (cows, oxen, bison, minotaurs)
Cervids (elk, caribou, moose, reindeer)

Surely some of those deserve their own catergory. There also seems to be a decent occurance of fantasy/fiction humanoids in furry artwork, such as elves, orcs, trolls, demons, and alien species. While it might be a bit more of a strech, would it be plausible to have an all encompassing catergory for fantasy humanoids?


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## Pico (Dec 20, 2005)

This has already been addressed in numerous other threads.  I still stand by my opinion that the species list should be removed entirely and artists encouraged to list any and all species in the keywords list.


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## wut (Dec 20, 2005)

I demand recognition for planctomycetes


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## Dragoneer (Dec 20, 2005)

wut said:
			
		

> I demand recognition for planctomycetes


Sorry, we are clearly against aerobic aquatic bacteria. Call it hate, call it bigotry. Just not gonna happen. 

Down with bacteria!


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## Xax (Dec 20, 2005)

I bet you are against adding lichens to the species list, too! >:E


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## Dragoneer (Dec 20, 2005)

Xax said:
			
		

> I bet you are against adding lichens to the species list, too! >:E


And I'm afraid protozoa are RIGHT OUT!


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## Xax (Dec 20, 2005)

Cellsecution!


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## Dragoneer (Dec 20, 2005)

Xax said:
			
		

> Cellsecution!


Sorry, but you need to consist of a million cells or more to partake in FA. Unwritten rule.


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## Litre (Dec 20, 2005)

my friend is sad preyfar. it's going to riot against you with millions of other cells. they demand recognition.


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## Dragoneer (Dec 20, 2005)

Litre said:
			
		

> my friend is sad preyfar. it's going to riot against you with millions of other cells. they demand recognition.


Bring 'em on. My platelets are ready to rage with serious thrombosis action! Granted, I'll probably die from he ensuing bloodclot, but...


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## Litre (Dec 20, 2005)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> Litre said:
> 
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> 
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may you get haemophilia then. cell rage!


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## Lili Fox (Dec 20, 2005)

That reminds me...how come there aren't any listings for rabbits..?!


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## Jahgo (Dec 21, 2005)

Note to self: Never make posts just before disappearing for hours on end. The results are doomed to lead to microbiology and bleeding disorders.


Guess I should skimmed over the prior post a bit more thoroughly, I hadn't realised that the topic of species listings was already prevalent here. 



			
				Pico said:
			
		

> I still stand by my opinion that the species list should be removed entirely and artists encouraged to list any and all species in the keywords list.



I would like to agree with you there, but I think there's a slight problem with the 'keyword list' as is. Firstly, on most art archive sites I've frequented, the 'keyword search' function seems to be problematic in that it's a resource muncher, and often results in the periodic suspension of the search feature due to high traffic. Browsing by a selective catergory doesn't seem to be as afflicted by this problem, as I suspect it's more controlled and less resource intensive then freely searching for listed keywords.

Secondly, I put more faith in people being able to make one exceptionally limited selection in a pull down list, as opposed to them having free range to enter what they want in a text bar. It seems like people get overwhelmed with the keyword bar, and if they don't feel like typing out every keyword that might apply to a submission, then they just avoid using the feature altogether.


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## OhNoes (Dec 21, 2005)

Jahgo said:
			
		

> Note to self: Never make posts just before disappearing for hours on end. The results are doomed to lead to microbiology and bleeding disorders.
> 
> 
> Guess I should skimmed over the prior post a bit more thoroughly, I hadn't realised that the topic of species listings was already prevalent here.
> ...



There's going to be problems and trade-offs no matter which decision is made.

A keyword list is prone to typos.  It can also provide a large ammount of overhead, if the programmers try to compensate for the typos and other weird spelling by matching rows based on whether or not a row's keyword is like the supplied search words, which really is probably the better way to handle a keyword search.

But on the other side, is the flexibility of keywords over a static list.  You'd need to nag on the admin to continually adding in new species and groupings to a static list..  Wolf..  Oh wait.. That's not good enough.. I want red wolf, timber, tundra, etc..  Oh!  What about wolftaurs?  Gotta have all the bases covered!  But this point was already made.

I think.. Perhaps a hybrid system would work best.

You'd have a block of static checkboxes of generalized species or genus..  Canine, feline, bovine, cervid, etc..  And then supplement these with extended keywords to pick up the slack of more specific and oddball additions.  Course this is going to pile on overhead onto the system.  It's a search though.  It's never really going to be exceptionally nice on the system resources.  But including both would allow a user to do a generic search, which would be nicer and kinder on the system.  And then allow them to also refine and look for something more specific.

Also, if you do generic species/genus via checkboxes, instead of a drop-down, then you can allow multiple tags to be placed on an entry.  I always hated how you had to pick /one/ medium and content for an entry on DA-like places, it's far too restrictive.  You can have multiple species in an image, and actions, kinks, etc.  Just like you could have a piece that's done with pencil, watercolor, with digital effects post scanning.  One size doesn't fit all.


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## Tikara (Dec 21, 2005)

Jahgo said:
			
		

> Note to self: Never make posts just before disappearing for hours on end. The results are doomed to lead to microbiology and bleeding disorders.


You just relised that? :lol:

But if you ask me, I do think the species list should be removed. I'm with the person who said they could just add the species in the keywords. There are thousands of different animal species that could be listed, so it's just best not to even start...


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## Pico (Dec 21, 2005)

OhNoes said:
			
		

> I think.. Perhaps a hybrid system would work best.
> 
> You'd have a block of static checkboxes of generalized species or genus..  Canine, feline, bovine, cervid, etc..  And then supplement these with extended keywords to pick up the slack of more specific and oddball additions.  Course this is going to pile on overhead onto the system.  It's a search though.  It's never really going to be exceptionally nice on the system resources.  But including both would allow a user to do a generic search, which would be nicer and kinder on the system.  And then allow them to also refine and look for something more specific.
> 
> Also, if you do generic species/genus via checkboxes, instead of a drop-down, then you can allow multiple tags to be placed on an entry.  I always hated how you had to pick /one/ medium and content for an entry on DA-like places, it's far too restrictive.  You can have multiple species in an image, and actions, kinks, etc.  Just like you could have a piece that's done with pencil, watercolor, with digital effects post scanning.  One size doesn't fit all.



I was just thinking that this would be the best compromise.  Personally, I never really pay attention to the drop down lists when I'm uploading stuff (there's a lot to choose from, unalphabetized for that matter, so being the lazy ass I am I just mark stuff as "other" anyway).  But I use the keyword box a lot, putting in any and all words that come to mind for the piece.  It's not difficult, for me, but I can see how it would put some pressure onto the system...then again, isn't that what the keywords box is for anyway?

The checkboxes would be nice because you could have a "generic" list, as you said, so it wouldn't be enormous.  And if people wanted to put their specific pweshus furry species in there somewhere, it could go in as a keyword.


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## OhNoes (Dec 21, 2005)

Pico said:
			
		

> I was just thinking that this would be the best compromise.  Personally, I never really pay attention to the drop down lists when I'm uploading stuff (there's a lot to choose from, unalphabetized for that matter, so being the lazy ass I am I just mark stuff as "other" anyway).  But I use the keyword box a lot, putting in any and all words that come to mind for the piece.  It's not difficult, for me, but I can see how it would put some pressure onto the system...then again, isn't that what the keywords box is for anyway?
> 
> The checkboxes would be nice because you could have a "generic" list, as you said, so it wouldn't be enormous.  And if people wanted to put their specific pweshus furry species in there somewhere, it could go in as a keyword.



I haven't actually bothered to try and upload anything.  But unsorted option lists?  That's kind of silly to do, and something that one of PHP's built-in sorting functions could fix with ease.

One of the other things that bothers me, with FA specifically..  Is that when you go to do a search.. There's these fugly lists that aren't just criteria to filter..  They're criteria, with a rating.  Which, really.  Is quite silly and bloats out the search, making it eat up more resources when you have to keep doing repeated searches for each rating/selection.  The rating really should be another selection to choose from.  Plus the fact that you can only pick just one of those pairs from the list is another issue too.

Checkboxes would be nice to see on the other parts of an upload and search.  Content, medium, genre, sick perverted kinks, etc for the same reasons.  And the lists for most of these are already there in the code.


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## Almafeta (Dec 21, 2005)

Tikara said:
			
		

> There are thousands of different animal species that could be listed, so it's just best not to even start...



99% of all furries (going by the numbers from Pounced) could be described by 30 species...  making the number an even 100 wouldn't be too hard to use (esp. if alphabetized), and would cover an amazing number of furs.


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## Arshes Nei (Dec 21, 2005)

Keywords are more relevant and less cumbersome. You really want a drop down menu of 100 species?


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## Almafeta (Dec 21, 2005)

Arshes Nei said:
			
		

> Keywords are more relevant and less cumberson. You really want a drop down menu of 100 species?



Hit the first letter, then use up and down to the right species.  For "Skunk", hit S, maybe hit down once past Sheep.

At least, that's how it works in Avant and Internet Explorer.


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## Tikara (Dec 21, 2005)

Almafeta said:
			
		

> Hit the first letter, then use up and down to the right species.  For "Skunk", hit S, maybe hit down once past Sheep.
> 
> At least, that's how it works in Avant and Internet Explorer.


Well, now, Some of us don't use IE and Avant, right? :lol: *Firefox user*


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## Xax (Dec 21, 2005)

Tikara said:
			
		

> Well, now, Some of us don't use IE and Avant, right? :lol: *Firefox user*



That's how Opera does it too. So maybe it's just Firefox that's weird.

Anyway, even with nice shortcuts, it's still a huge list. I like the idea someone had of having a text area (or a list of the big species, maybe their Class or Order* and then a text input), and then maybe using the levenshtein()** php function on the textarea to fit those to a general common tag (so there's not like "artic wolf" and "artic_wolf" and "artic wofl" etc etc).

Or hey, just get rid of the species list and use flags and tags.

*I actually kind of like the idea of sorting all the stuff via proper taxonomical names. You'd have to make up a whole load of new Kingdoms, though
**as the man page notes, this is kind of an expensive call


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## Arshes Nei (Dec 21, 2005)

What is the big obsession with a drop down list for species tags? 

I mean unlike places where maybe you sign up somthing you'd have to input your Country/State right? Annoying when you sign up, but hey you do it once.

Ok, now we have this big drop down menu for species for *every* time you make a submission?

The point is to make it easier for users, not longer :/


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## Corbs (Dec 22, 2005)

Geez! Now where am I going to put my next Archaea TF!?


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## DolomiteDog (Dec 22, 2005)

I'd personally be happier with a MUCH more general species list. Simply like: Feline, Canine, Equine, Primape, etc., then you know, use the keywords for _what they're supposed to be used for?_.


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## Zippo (Dec 23, 2005)

There needs to be a dinosaur addition to the reptile section at least. Also, aliens, since most of my works are naughty alien genitic experiments ^^


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## Iveechan (Dec 26, 2005)

Whoa whoa wait, hold on.

I thought FA was, despite having "fur" in its title, sopposed to be a general art site?  As in... "where freedom of expression reigns!"  Even though just about anything is allowed, isn't a species list just making FA seem like a furries only site?


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## chelio (Dec 26, 2005)

*Dont forget Deer!*

Deer?!? Where are they?

Deer = Capreolus Capreolus


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## furry (Dec 26, 2005)

Iveechan said:
			
		

> Whoa whoa wait, hold on.
> 
> I thought FA was, despite having "fur" in its title, sopposed to be a general art site?  As in... "where freedom of expression reigns!"  Even though just about anything is allowed, isn't a species list just making FA seem like a furries only site?



We can have ewwwwwwman as species!


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## wut (Dec 26, 2005)

Iveechan said:
			
		

> Whoa whoa wait, hold on.
> 
> I thought FA was, despite having "fur" in its title, sopposed to be a general art site?



Don't kid yourself. It's allowed, it's just not really catered for.


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## blackpaw (Dec 30, 2005)

I don't know if it's been said.. but it bears saying soem more..


*BADGERS.*

  ^/_^[/b]


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## Spinal (Jan 1, 2006)

Dinosaurs!

But avian or reptile?  OR BOTH?  Dun da dunn


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## Suule (Jan 1, 2006)

Moogles


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## Dragoneer (Jan 1, 2006)

Suule said:
			
		

> Moogles


Well, we're going to be revising the species list and upload process in the near future. We're aware that it's... not as efficient as it should be.


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## Tabuu-Lion (Jan 1, 2006)

Dragoneer said:
			
		

> Well, we're going to be revising the species list and upload process in the near future. We're aware that it's... not as efficient as it should be.



Don't waste your time, D. You know as well as I that this thread has completely degenerated into a glorified role call thread 

Ewoks! Who forgot ewoks?!


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## Suule (Jan 1, 2006)

Well there is a complete serious thing - Adding humans to the species list. A little nod into the non-furry part of the audience.


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## Suule (Jan 1, 2006)

Tabuu-Lion said:
			
		

> Don't waste your time, D. You know as well as I that this thread has completely degenerated into a glorified role call thread
> 
> Ewoks! Who forgot ewoks?!



EWOK CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!


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## Tabuu-Lion (Jan 1, 2006)

Suule said:
			
		

> Well there is a complete serious thing - Adding humans to the species list. A little nod into the non-furry part of the audience.


I agree wholeheartedly. It at least gives some small sense of welcome to them, proving you don't have to hack out a fursona or anything just to fit in or have a place around. I was really struggling to get a friend to come on and non just crap out a fursona because everyone else had one e.e 


			
				Suule said:
			
		

> EWOK CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!


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## Suule (Jan 1, 2006)

My mind's been raped. Seriously raped.[/img]


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## Pico (Jan 1, 2006)

Suule said:
			
		

> Well there is a complete serious thing - Adding humans to the species list. A little nod into the non-furry part of the audience.



BUT EWMANS DONT BELONG ON FURAFFINITY; however, inflated furs AND fat furs?  You betcha !


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## uncia2000 (Jan 1, 2006)

Pico said:
			
		

> Suule said:
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_*chuckles*_ Would you be willing to compromise and agree to inflated humans, Pico? 

=
_(personally agree with Tabuu-Lion, above (and not just as a token "nod" to our manga-style artists). Will look forward to any updates on this... )_


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## RailRide (Jan 3, 2006)

Tabuu-Lion said:
			
		

> Suule said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Seconded. Look at my nick. It's purposefully offtopic for the fandom. And I always take care to remind the uninitiated looking in,  that it's _absolutely not_ a 'requirement' to adopt an anthropmorphic alter-ego just to participate in it.

---PCJ


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## uncia2000 (Jan 3, 2006)

RailRide said:
			
		

> Seconded. Look at my nick. It's purposefully offtopic for the fandom. And I always take care to remind the uninitiated looking in,  that it's _absolutely not_ a 'requirement' to adopt an anthropmorphic alter-ego just to participate in it.


_*non-anthro snow'pard chuffles in agreement* ^^_
Ah. But yes, aside from that agreed 100%, yet again. After all, _most_ of us meet IRL in human form 

IMHO certainly don't want to put anyone off by thinking they "must" have furry (or manga, etc.) alter-ego/s to join in, contribute, or even browse through the community.
Is whatever anyone feels they are happy with, personally.


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## Xax (Jan 3, 2006)

Uhhh, if your 'fursona' is talking and stuff then I would reckon to say that it is in fact anthropomorphic to a fairly large degree.

Also: The site is called FurAffinity. It's a kind of random mishmash of words, but it does imply that it's a artsite specifically for furry art. You might want to make it a bit more obvious that it's not.

(p.s. Railride I like the implication that any alias not including the name of an animal is 'offtopic')


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## Dragoneer (Jan 3, 2006)

uncia2000 said:
			
		

> _(personally agree with Tabuu-Lion, above (and not just as a token "nod" to our manga-style artists). Will look forward to any updates on this... )_


We discussed the species list in a recenty admin/mod meeting, and will we are going to revamp the upload process soon. Cookies and email have top priority, however.


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## RailRide (Jan 4, 2006)

Xax said:
			
		

> Uhhh, if your 'fursona' is talking and stuff then I would reckon to say that it is in fact anthropomorphic to a fairly large degree.
> 
> Also: The site is called FurAffinity. It's a kind of random mishmash of words, but it does imply that it's a artsite specifically for furry art. You might want to make it a bit more obvious that it's not.
> 
> (p.s. Railride I like the implication that any alias not including the name of an animal is 'offtopic')



Or including an attribute typically associated with an animal. 

My nick happens to be a handle I kept from way back when _Descent_ first hit the PC gaming scene. It's merely descriptive (I ride the subway to work, it's also my primary hobby), and is pretty much attribute-neutral.

My initial comment referred to stuff like the 'Introductions' column on VCL's forum, (or any other place where newbies make themselves known), where you can see a fair number of people who are totally new to the fandom (usually finding out about it from internet searches or  (slanted) media anecdotes), and thought with all honesty that they _needed_ to devise an anthropomorphic/animal-themed/pseudo-Native American personae or fan-name to participate, a myth that needs a few holes poked in it.

I became a bit more adamant about that point after Anthrocon '05, where the Wyndham check-in clerk I dealt with asked me a question that indicated she thought most of the con attendees intended to fursuit.

---PCJ


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## shep (Feb 24, 2006)

I still have lots of Bunny Girl pics just waiting for "Rabbit" to be added to the list.  They feel insulted to be left with "Other"


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