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[Timst]

In the list thread, there's a debate about whether or not should the dwarves be able to know every kind of stone immediately. Some people think they should, because hey, they're dwarves, that the kind of thing they know from living underground.
The problem is, if you mod elves to be playable, they're still able to distinguish Bauxite from Granite and know that this peculiar stone is Satinspar. Also, dwarves know every kind of tree, which doesn't really make sense. I mean, I live near a forest and I couldn't tell more than 5 trees types. I don't know the difference between a spruce and a fir tree, and I wouldn't recognize a chestnut if I were to see one. Honestly, I really don't see why some guys that live underground most of the time should be able to instantly recognize every single kind of tree.

So there could be some kind of tags to add in the entities definition :

[ENTITY:HUMAN]

[STONE_KNOWLEDGE:medium]
[trEE_KNOWLEDGE:medium]
[ANIMALS_KNOWLEDGE:good]

[ENTITY:ELF]

[Entity:HUMAN]

[STONE_KNOWLEDGE:bad]
[trEE_KNOWLEDGE:perfect]
[ANIMALS_KNOWLEDGE:good]

For instance.


A "perfect" token would be the equivalent of what we have now : you know immediately what is this stone or tree, regardless of if you have already seen it or not.
A "good" one would be the same except for the exotic (= non-biome) trees/stone/animals (it will be displayed "an unknown stone" or "a strange animal" etc)
With a "medium", you could only distinguish the most simple stones/trees/whatever, the other will be displayed as "a pine-like tree" or "A deer-like animal".
With a "bad", you wouldn't be able to recognize the stuff by their name. It will be "a dark stone", or "a tall tree".
There could even be a "none" for really dumb races that'll only display "a stone" or "a tree".

After that, maybe you would be able to learn more while playing as an adventurer by examining trees/stone/animals (or talking with an expert in that field), and in fortress mode, there could be a noble (philosopher ? or another guy called "wise" or I don't know) that'll spend his time studying things (he might need samples, like a log of the tree, a rock, bones from the animals), and after some time he'll raise the knowledge of your fortress above the race's standards.

[winner]

Spruce are the ones that are shaped like douglas fir but their needles are stiff and sharp enough that they can hurt if you grab them.

[Bricks]

Certainly some sort of knowledge should be implemented for adventure mode.  I'm not sure how you would "know" things, or even learn them, in fort mode.  I don't think it should be a flat "stone knowledge" percent, but rather, on a rock-by-rock basis (or whatever sort of knowledge you want).  As far as naming things goes, you could have a [DESCRIPTIVE_NAME:] for what you would call a rock/tree/animal/whatever just by looking at it.  That could also be implemented if we can attach better descriptions to objects, instead of typing something like "red stone" for everything.  The current, "true name", should remain.  A cultural name would be interesting, too.  It could be something programmed

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(dwarves call it adamantium, demons call it prisonite, kobolds call it lucky iron)

or it could be a name that the world gen spits out, based on what is available in the entity's boundaries, as well as how they use it (or how it is used against them).  Creatures could be assigned names in a similar way.

[Granite26]

Maybe just a general name and a specific name?

So there'd be 'evergreens' and 'palms' and everybody'd know that, but if you had the 'tree knowledge' skill either innately (like swimming is now) or high enough rank, you'd get the full name (Pine tree).  If it was something everybody knows (Gold) then the common name and specific name would be the same (although something like pyrite might have 'gold' as it's common name <eg>


To be fair though, the discussion grew out of a desire to not use period inappropriate technical names for rocks that weren't differentiated until modern geology needed a reason to differentiate them.