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[Starver]

I wonder, for the future, can I state that I grant permission to a couple of select users to be able to petition a mod to edit one of my posts (the first one of this thread) on their behalf with new information they specify? (to keep a summary of the whole thread up-to-date). I probably won't be around here very often, I like DF, but I can't invest as much time in it as most of the others around here, I just liked tossing this one idea into the pot. ^.^

Mightn't it be simpler in such a circumstance to get a Successor arranged (or at least someone you know will be more active than you) to edit a particular post of their own (either from early on or a specially-created new one)?  Then you just edit your OP to link to that post, with an appropriate preamble, and leave them to it.  Means less (no!) work for the mods, and can be revoked/modified in case of intellectual conflict by you simply de-linking from the OP (or maybe adding an angry message to the pre-amble) and re-linking to someone else, as you might see fit.

Sorry, I'm being rather meta, here.

[NW_Kohaku]

This thread keeps changing its name. I keep seeing a "new" thread with five pages... 

Anyway, you might want to spoil the parts of the original post, rather than strikeout them, so that it's neither hard to read nor in the way of what you most want to say.

Mightn't it be simpler in such a circumstance to get a Successor arranged (or at least someone you know will be more active than you) to edit a particular post of their own (either from early on or a specially-created new one)?  Then you just edit your OP to link to that post, with an appropriate preamble, and leave them to it.  Means less (no!) work for the mods, and can be revoked/modified in case of intellectual conflict by you simply de-linking from the OP (or maybe adding an angry message to the pre-amble) and re-linking to someone else, as you might see fit.

Sorry, I'm being rather meta, here.

In those cases, it often happens that a new "steward" of a thread just creates a new thread linking back to the old one and summarizing or quoting over the most important bits.


In any event, on this topic...

I think it needs work...

For example it needs to recognise that the creature is no longer considered part of the bamboo family.

As well we need something that deals with fantastically low percents.

We don't deal with percentages, already.  We deal in weights and ratios.

That is, you can say one caste has a weight of 999999 and another has the weight of 1.  Then, you have a million-to-one chance of getting that second caste. 

There may be some RNG weirdness if the number is large enough that a particular RNG method (such as an integer-based modulus method of obtaining a random "roll") may be skewed with large enough integer ratios, but that's a bit of a different issue...

In any event, you might be able to capitalize upon the interactions coding in order to create timed "life cycles" that involve radical transformations of a creature.  (The coding would need to be expanded to be able to include something "inanimate" - as plants are currently treated by code, regardless of real life - into a "creature", but it would otherwise be possible.)

Of course, there's still some kinks to work out even with what we have, since we currently have a legends mode that will talk about a converted night hag husband as the king of a dwarven civ, when they were actually a dwarf when they were king.  Slaying a werebeast means getting a kill on the base creature type, not the were creature type. 

However, hypothetically, you could have some sort of caste that is born then immediately "transformed" into something else like a night creature spouse conversion to be a radically different creature.  Life stages could similarly be handled.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also, learn to seperate jargon from informal use.  I used "gastropod" as an adjective, Not as a noun. "Gastropod" as a noun has a very specific use. "Gastropod" as an adjectie relates to body plan, as an abstract high level concept. They are not the same, and the use was not the same. Calm down francis, and enjoy the game.

I have never seen "gastropod" used as anything but the name of the clade which contains snails, slugs, sea butterflies, etc.

May I suggest that "gastropodal" or perhaps "gastrapoid" be used in this sort of case, much as with (in fact, quite similar to) one might describe a fictional alien with no implied relation to the gastropods of Earth, but having the apparent phenotype of one when it comes to trying to describe it[1].
Not being so intimate (fnar fnar) with the subset of the natural world, it's possible that one or other of these words are already taken to mean something technical, of course, so feel free to ignore me...

Alright...but how are flesh balls gastropoid?

[wierd]

Technically, a gastropod does not crawl on it's "stomach". That is an internal organ, and never comes into contact with the outside environment. (Except for things like starfish, with an everting stomach... but they aren't gastropods either. IIRC, those are echinoderms...)

A flesh ball is "gastropoid", because it does crawl (sortof... if spasms of muscle contraction can be considered crawling.) On it's "stomach"-- eg, what settles for its abdomen. (Main body part.)

Its organ for locomotion is also its abdomen. Hence, "stomach foot", ergo, descriptive adjective "gastropoid", "like something with a foot-like stomach".

Much like "echinoderm" means "spiny skin".  The adjective "echinodermic" means "it has spiny skin", not "its a kind of starfish." 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Technically, a gastropod does not crawl on it's "stomach". That is an internal organ, and never comes into contact with the outside environment. (Except for things like starfish, with an everting stomach... but they aren't gastropods either. IIRC, those are echinoderms...)

A flesh ball is "gastropoid", because it does crawl (sortof... if spasms of muscle contraction can be considered crawling.) On it's "stomach"-- eg, what settles for its abdomen. (Main body part.)

Its organ for locomotion is also its abdomen. Hence, "stomach foot", ergo, descriptive adjective "gastropoid", "like something with a foot-like stomach".

You could make the same argument for a snake or an annelid.
There's already words for that, like "crawling" or "vermiform," although the latter doesn't apply so much to flesh balls. You don't have to make up new ones.

Much like "echinoderm" means "spiny skin".  The adjective "echinodermic" means "it has spiny skin", not "its a kind of starfish." 

...Yeah, stop making up words. You're just going to confuse people more familiar with biology who will then question why you didn't say "spiky" or something.

[wierd]

I'm not making the definitions up!

The ORIGINAL methodology for taxonomy classification was by observed characteristics only, and how certain animals looked and acted a lot like certain other animals.

For a long time even, things like bats were classified as avians even!

Many species were reclassified after DNA was discovered, and previously held assumptions about taxonomy were shown to be simple falsehoods.

"Vermiform" literally means "Worm like"- which is why it applies to snakes, which have a worm-like body. Your own example of an alternative usage does not help your case here.

What has happened, is that taxonomy has reached a very mature position, and creatures in (arguably very poorly named) certain categories now have very very specific features and genetic heritages, and the names have no real reason to change from what was familiar.  This is an example of words losing their original meaning, and being used to mean new, specific things.

The argument is one of "Jargon" vs "Literal meaning".  "Arthropod" means "Hard feet", "Echinoderm" means "Spiny skin", "Vermiform" means "Looks like a worm", Gastropod means "Stomach foot", "Vertebrate" means "Has a spine", etc.

Much like if we discovered an alien species that has a rigid spine like structure, but has absolutely no relation to anything on earth, we would call it a vertibrate, even though it does not belong in ANY of our taxonomical models! We would do this, even if it is radically alien and has no central nervous system. (Say, a distributed one instead.) This would make it CLEARLY not belong in the earth based life "vertebrate" category-- but where else are you going to put it?

Likewise if we found a cold blooded, egg laying alien creature that lactates, with genuine nipples. By definition, it would be mammal, possessing true mammary glands, even though it CLEARLY would not fit with earth mammals, lacking a 4 chambered heart, and lacking the production of a placental mass, since it does not bear live young and lays eggs instead.

In short, what I am getting at is that you are being complacent about what each of those adjective means, having enjoyed a very stable period where they have come to hold a very specific meaning in addition to their literal meaning.  That changes when you start throwing in really bizarre creatures that do not fit the established categories' new implied meanings.

DF has things that are created solely out of the RNG! It doesnt obey those conventions. A giant one eyed pterosaur with 3 breasts, and a grey chitinous exoskeleton with warty bumps defies classification under your convention for use of those adjectives. Under literal use, like I have been using, you could classify it as a vertebrate mammalian arthropod. (I can just feel that making your blood pressure rise too. LOL)

I fully understand about misuse of jargon, being a former IT specialist, turned engineer. Hearing people call the system chasis the "CPU" makes me cringe-- but it isn't fully wrong either (It IS what does all the processing), just not proper use. (Proper use clarifies the individual components inside it, with the CPU having a specific definition. The assemblage is know as the "System chassis")  In instances where there isn't a proper descriptor, a close but improper one has to suffice. That's the point I am getting at. We are being presented with creatures that simply dont fit the taxonomy model, but need adjectives to describe them. Using archaic and no longer used literal descriptors is what we have to fall back on.  Complaining about that use doesn't make you look very open minded.

[Reelya]

That's not even getting into the weirdness of gastropods like mollusks and pals.

gastropods like mollusks and pals.

implication that mollusks are a subclade of gastropods

...
That's just wrong. It's the other way around.

lulwut?

I was referring to the meaning of what gastropod means-- StomachFoot, EG-- things that move around with muscles on their abdomens. (Slugs, Snails, Clams, etc.) In the world of DF, we shouldn't make assumptions about the phylogenic categorization of fantastical organisms. Instead, I was referring to the body plan description-- gastropods.  In the DF universe, this would include things like Fleshballs. Those are NOT mollusks, but still gastropoid. (Fleshball has no nervous tissue, has no openings for consumption or defecation, and does not secrete a shell, nor have any noteworthy internal structure.  It is therefor, not diagnostically a member of the phylum mollusca, despite being clearly a gastropod.)

Please stick to standard English definitions -_-

Molluscs are NOT a subclade of gastropods for several reasons - a clade is a group of related descendents (which your personal classification is not), and not all molluscs are gastropods. Gastropod has been specifically used to refer just to slugs, snails & co (a subset or subclade of mollusca) since the time of Darwin. You're free to have your own personal definition of words, but just be clear that you're the only one in the world who defines both clade and gastropod those ways. Hence, it's useless to confer ideas to others.

GreatWyrmGold, on the other hand was 100% correct to which you replied "lulwut?". Every scientist agrees that:

gastropods are a subclade of mollusks.

Technically, a gastropod does not crawl on it's "stomach". That is an internal organ, and never comes into contact with the outside environment. (Except for things like starfish, with an everting stomach... but they aren't gastropods either. IIRC, those are echinoderms...)

A flesh ball is "gastropoid", because it does crawl (sortof... if spasms of muscle contraction can be considered crawling.) On it's "stomach"-- eg, what settles for its abdomen. (Main body part.)

Its organ for locomotion is also its abdomen. Hence, "stomach foot", ergo, descriptive adjective "gastropoid", "like something with a foot-like stomach".

The problem with that gastropod definition is that plenty of other types of worms, caterpillars, maggots etc would all have to be classified as gastropods. That's the problem with making new definitions up as you go along. The standard usage has been refined by 1000's of people over centuries, and it's much more consistent than pretty much anything you're going to make up by yourself.

Much like "echinoderm" means "spiny skin".  The adjective "echinodermic" means "it has spiny skin", not "its a kind of starfish." 

Well perhaps, but do you have an example to back that up? The only references i can find to echinodermic are to seacumucmbers and the like, an echinoderm.

By your same logic anything that creates acid is oxygen because oxygen literally means "acid producer".

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm not making the definitions up!
The ORIGINAL methodology for taxonomy classification was by observed characteristics only, and how certain animals looked and acted a lot like certain other animals.
For a long time even, things like bats were classified as avians even!
Many species were reclassified after DNA was discovered, and previously held assumptions about taxonomy were shown to be simple falsehoods.

And we used to think the sun revolved around the Earth. Your point?

"Vermiform" literally means "Worm like"- which is why it applies to snakes, which have a worm-like body. Your own example of an alternative usage does not help your case here.

I fail to see why. "Vermiform" does not coincide with actual taxonomy, which is my issue with the words.
Also, "vermiform" is pretty well used to mean "serpentine," unlike "gastropoid."

The argument is one of "Jargon" vs "Literal meaning".  "Arthropod" means "Hard feet", "Echinoderm" means "Spiny skin", "Vermiform" means "Looks like a worm", Gastropod means "Stomach foot", "Vertebrate" means "Has a spine", etc.

Those are all literally translated meanings of the word, which I doubt anyone who knew enough Greek and/or Latin to understand them would use those over such words as "Spiny" when they're useful.

Much like if we discovered an alien species that has a rigid spine like structure, but has absolutely no relation to anything on earth, we would call it a vertibrate, even though it does not belong in ANY of our taxonomical models! We would do this, even if it is radically alien and has no central nervous system. (Say, a distributed one instead.) This would make it CLEARLY not belong in the earth based life "vertebrate" category-- but where else are you going to put it?

Into a differing taxonomy with new clades made for the new world?
Or, you know, call it "pseudovertebrate?" Pseudo- covers many sins.

Likewise if we found a cold blooded, egg laying alien creature that lactates, with genuine nipples. By definition, it would be mammal, possessing true mammary glands, even though it CLEARLY would not fit with earth mammals, lacking a 4 chambered heart, and lacking the production of a placental mass, since it does not bear live young and lays eggs instead.

I don't think that sounds much like a mammal at all, actually.

In short, what I am getting at is that you are being complacent about what each of those adjective means, having enjoyed a very stable period where they have come to hold a very specific meaning in addition to their literal meaning.  That changes when you start throwing in really bizarre creatures that do not fit the established categories' new implied meanings.

So...don't use well-established words to mean something marginally similar to what they used to mean?

DF has things that are created solely out of the RNG! It doesnt obey those conventions. A giant one eyed pterosaur with 3 breasts, and a grey chitinous exoskeleton with warty bumps defies classification under your convention for use of those adjectives. Under literal use, like I have been using, you could classify it as a vertebrate mammalian arthropod. (I can just feel that making your blood pressure rise too. LOL)

Or, you know, not classify it without further study into the FB and related species. And if classification must be done, I certainly wouldn't pigeonhole it into arthropods or chordates.

I fully understand about misuse of jargon, being a former IT specialist, turned engineer. Hearing people call the system chasis the "CPU" makes me cringe-- but it isn't fully wrong either (It IS what does all the processing), just not proper use. (Proper use clarifies the individual components inside it, with the CPU having a specific definition. The assemblage is know as the "System chassis")  In instances where there isn't a proper descriptor, a close but improper one has to suffice. That's the point I am getting at. We are being presented with creatures that simply dont fit the taxonomy model, but need adjectives to describe them. Using archaic and no longer used literal descriptors is what we have to fall back on.  Complaining about that use doesn't make you look very open minded.

The problem is, you are the only person who I have ever heard use "gastropod" in such a manner. Not to mention that flesh balls are almost nothing like gastropods. They're less like gastropods than they are like jellyfish, sponges, or dust bunnies.

By your same logic anything that creates acid is oxygen because oxygen literally means "acid producer".

Excellent example, which I wish I had thought of. (This actually fits his logic better than calling a flesh ball "gastropoid," because a flesh ball doesn't have a stomach or even a ventral side to crawl on!)

[wierd]

Echinoderm
gastropod
Arthropod
Vertebrate
mammal

Note how *ALL* of them are descriptive of a high level external FEATURE of the creatures, and not a specific set of diagnostic criteria!

(Feel free to look up the etymology of any others you like! You will *gasp!* find they all follow the same pattern!)


(For instance, to be considered a "Mammal" in the jargon sense used by current biologists, the creature must have a 4 chambered heart, must be endothermic, must produce milk, and must have live young supported via a placenta during gestation. By definition they are all vertebrates, being a subclass of vertebrate life. To be a 'mammal' in the literal sense of the word, it just needs to have milk producing breasts)

The use is archaic, but NOT incorrect. If I were saying something like "Fleshball crawls on its stomach, and all gastropods are molluscs, therefor fleshballs are molluscs", that would be flat out wrong. That is NOT what I said, and NOT how I used it. I said "Gastropods, like molluscs"-- EG, "Things that crawl with a single appendage on their stomach, like molluscs".  The issue is one of pedantry in this case on the part of being slavish to established jargon.

(In this case, Taking a previously ordinary phrase, like "hedgehog like skin" from latin, and making it mean something VERY specific that only applies within a very limited subset of the educated public, making its use unintelligible to most, hence, JARGON.  Compare, 100 years from now some confectionery researcher specifies a very specific meaning to the word "Candybar", asserting that only chocolate coated confections with a soft candy filling can be called a "candybar", thus excluding things like "butterfingers" from being "candybars"--- Against an ordinary person describing a toffee drizzled marshmallow stuffed granola bar as one. Literally, "Candybar" means "Bar shaped candy", and can apply to anything from a bar of ribbon candy, to a bar shaped serving of taffy. Your argument that "We have used candybar to refer only to soft filled chocolate confectionary for like, EVER! Calling a butterfingers bar a candybar is just plain wrong!" does not make the appropriation magically superior to its original use. It just means you are beholden to established jargon.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Echinoderm
gastropod
Arthropod
Vertebrate
mammal
Note how *ALL* of them are descriptive of a high level external FEATURE of the creatures, and not a specific set of diagnostic criteria!
(Feel free to look up the etymology of any others you like! You will *gasp!* find they all follow the same pattern!)
(For instance, to be considered a "Mammal" in the jargon sense used by current biologists, the creature must have a 4 chambered heart, must be endothermic, must produce milk, and must have live young supported via a placenta during gestation. By definition they are all vertebrates, being a subclass of vertebrate life. To be a 'mammal' in the literal sense of the word, it just needs to have milk producing breasts)

Any classification like that is more than a bit suspect to me, because it's wrong. It's ignoring many realities of biology. A mollusk might be defined as a soft-bodied creature with a shell, but there are mollusks without shells and soft-bodied shelled creatures that aren't mollusks.

The use is archaic, but NOT incorrect. If I were saying something like "Fleshball crawls on its stomach, and all gastropods are molluscs, therefor fleshballs are molluscs", that would be flat out wrong. That is NOT what I said, and NOT how I used it. I said "Gastropods, like molluscs"-- EG, "Things that crawl with a single appendage on their stomach, like molluscs".  The issue is one of pedantry in this case on the part of being slavish to established jargon.

Mollusks are very rarely gastropodal in the sense you used the word. Pretty much the only ones are platyhelminates and, of course, most gastropods.

(In this case, Taking a previously ordinary phrase, like "hedgehog like skin" from latin, and making it mean something VERY specific that only applies within a very limited subset of the educated public, making its use unintelligible to most, hence, JARGON.  Compare, 100 years from now some confectionery researcher specifies a very specific meaning to the word "Candybar", asserting that only chocolate coated confections with a soft candy filling can be called a "candybar", thus excluding things like "butterfingers" from being "candybars"--- Against an ordinary person describing a toffee drizzled marshmallow stuffed granola bar as one. Literally, "Candybar" means "Bar shaped candy", and can apply to anything from a bar of ribbon candy, to a bar shaped serving of taffy. Your argument that "We have used candybar to refer only to soft filled chocolate confectionary for like, EVER! Calling a butterfingers bar a candybar is just plain wrong!" does not make the appropriation magically superior to its original use. It just means you are beholden to established jargon.)

The simple fact is, you're using "gastropod"--a specific term with a specific meaning--to mean something completely different. Your definition of gastropod-like applies to almost everything that doesn't swim or walk, which is to say dang near every animal on the planet. Your exact same logic can be used to call a pigeon a mammal, a platypus a reptile, or an annelid a roundworm--hell, you could probably call one a ribbon worm--not to mention the problems when you apply the same logic to non-biological sciences. Say, calling a motorboat a helicopter--both are different from vehicles which travel through a similar medium by their propellers.

You're assuming that biological creatures fall into nice, neat categories, which they don't; OR you're assuming other people use "gastropod" to mean "crawls," which they don't.

[Reelya]

It just means you are beholden to established jargon.)

It's called frikkin "language". It's how we can talk to each other and not get completely confused. Sticking to commonly accepted word definitions is not the same thing as "jargon". Or, at least, every language is a pyramid of jargon. Where does jargon stop and "language" begin? Any English word could be called "jargon" if you take "English speakers" as the target group.

Your candybar analogy isn't valid, because you can't actually show a time when "gastropod" was used to refer to many different types of things, and was subsequently narrowed to slugs and snails. The term, like most taxonomic names was specifically created as a neologism from a dead language, to refer to slugs, snails & co.

[wierd]

You realize that the two of you have taken something miniscule, and made it into a mountain, right?

[GreatWyrmGold]

You realize that the two of you have taken something miniscule, and made it into a mountain, right?

I pointed out that you were using a word a way it was never intended to be used.
You defended your erroneous stance.
I don't like erroneousness.

[wierd]

I don't consider it any more improper than the word "pyrotechnic", which means "Fire technique". Pyrotechnics does not always involve explosive components. Whirling around flaming sticks like at a hawaiian party also qualifies.

I am really growing tired of derailing this topic, and if your intent is to in some fashion make me stop using language in this way, you are not doing a very good job of doing so. Arguments like "we invented those words" are specious, and arguments starting with "All reputable scientists.." are loaded, and cherry picked. I provided a purely linguistic rationale, that you have not very effectively countered, but still expect a recantation on.

I asserted that the method of use was not the method you ascribed to it, which is the source of the error in your argument.

Compare:  Asserting that a certain shade of deep blue is "Cobalt blue", when the pigment does not contain cobalt. The pedant will assert that calling it cobalt blue is erroneous, and be partially correct. His insistence that the person calling the cobalt free pigment "Cobalt blue" cease doing so, because it causes confusion, is completely missing the point that "Cobalt blue" is a color descriptor, not a descriptor of its composition.

In this case, I was referring to a fictional creature that has only one major body organ composed entirely of muscle, which is able to contract much the same way a mollusc's "Foot" does, as being a gastropod, referring explicitly to the descriptive nature of the word, and not any specific meaning found in biological jargon.

Essentially, you are being this guy:



and I grow weary of your insistence.

I am willing to agree that the use is unusual, and even unexpected. I still hold however that it is not functionally nor technically wrong to use it in that fashion, as I can find no argument against it other than an appeal to authority logical fallacy.

EG, "No scientist uses that word that way, therefor your use of that word in that fashion is incorrect."

Unless you can come up with something that does not revolve around a false precondition as an argument, I will not recant, and you are simply wasting everyone's time trying to force the issue.

[10ebbor10]

EG, "No scientist uses that word that way, therefor your use of that word in that fashion is incorrect."

Just as a note, but you can't just randomly decide the meaning of words to mean what you want. Eventually, the meaning of a words is decided by how it's used by experts/ the majority of the population.

Also, the ethymological origin of a word doesn't describe it's meaning.
For example, a Bulwark is derived from the french boulevard (a large avenue). That doesn't mean I can start using it that way.