Talk:Fern

Feedback request
I have found more plants (Lotus Teeth and Corpse Pitcher) that give the exact same resources as the various Ferns and Hostas. They are neither ferns nor hostas, so one option is to combine those plants, the ferns, and the hostas into a single "Broad-Leaf Plant" page. Does anybody see any downsides? &mdash;Red Agliator (talk) 16:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@RA You know how I like to question Categories, classifications and basically any type of "label"... It seems to me that the "Broad-Leaf Plant" class is beginning to include plants that seem to me to not be "broad-leafed". Here is a list of the filenames for all of the plant images from the game that start with "bush":
 * bushBerrySprout.png
 * bushBerryYoung.png
 * bushblueberry.png
 * bush.png
 * bushPolarblueberry.png
 * bushPolarredberry.png
 * bushredberry.png


 * bushRosBroadBanA.png
 * bushRosBroadBanB.png
 * bushRosBroadBanC.png
 * bushRosBroadEleA.png
 * bushRosBroadEleB.png
 * bushRosBroadEleC.png
 * bushRosFernPaisA.png
 * bushRosFernPaisB.png
 * bushRosFernPaisC.png
 * bushRosFernPeaA.png
 * bushRosFernPeaB.png
 * bushRosFernPeaC.png
 * bushRosHostaA.png
 * bushRosHostaB.png
 * bushRosHostaC.png
 * bushRosHostaEdgeA.png
 * bushRosHostaEdgeB.png
 * bushRosHostaEdgeC.png
 * bushRosHostaSpotA.png
 * bushRosHostaSpotB.png
 * bushRosHostaSpotC.png


 * bushScrub.png
 * bushWinterScrub.png

I'm not sure what the "Ros" stands for but it includes Broad-Leaf (Banana/Elephant), Ferns, and Hostas, so it seems that while the Broad Leaf Plants are related to Ferns and Hostas, they are three separate groups. Does anyone know what "Ros" stands for and maybe we could use that as a more generalized grouping? Since there are several other "odd-ball" bushes in the list should we just dump them all into a "Bush" category? (Just my $0.02) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@LoonWoof - From the semantic perspective, it only works to combine environment objects into a single page if they all produce the same things when broken. Think about the Large Leaf page: right now it lists Broad-Leaf Plants and Palms as sources. If we create a combined page with everything that the devs named "bush..." internally, then the Large Leaf page will list "Bush" as a source. Will a wiki user see that and assume that a berry bush should yield a large leaf when it does not? If a lot of folks do think that, we'd be creating a problem if we made a "Bush" page that way. (As a side not, if possible, I'd rather not mix the idea of a combined page with the word "category." While in normal language, a group of things like that is a category, when talking about SMW, it gets very confusing, since "category" has a very specific meaning and purpose.) –Red Agliator (talk) 18:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@LoonWoof @Red Agliator Whatever you both decide to do with this, try to keep the categories as simple as possible, as everything is likely to change. I doubt anyone wants to overhaul anything too drastically when changes start occurring. –Pamcakes (talk) 3:42PM, 14 October 2014 (EST)

Alright, it seems that I may not fully grasp all the issues involved here. Yes, I understand that from an SMW POV the Categories determine things such as what gets dropped when a plant is "broken" and that that is a different issue from how the combined page would present descriptive information to readers. I was considering how a reader of a page entitled "Broad-Leaf Plants" might react to seeing plants on the page that didn't have "broad leaves". Is this even an issue? &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@LoonWoof - you brought up a lot of different thoughts and questions. I focused my answer on "should we make a 'Bush' page?" Are you more interested in the question "will readers be surprised to see hostas on a 'Broad-Leaf Plant' page?" Or in a different question that I didn't quite catch? –Red Agliator (talk) 20:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)