Talk: Unnamed humanoids (22nd century)

"Non-Humanoid"?

They have two legs, two arms, one head with what we can reasonably assume are eyes and mouth, and they wear space suits. What exactly makes them non-humanoid? Xavius, Envoy of Fluidic Space 18:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Everything. They acted very differently, and they might not have been eyes. I think this species is a "might-be-but-probably-not-humanoid". No-one else has said anything. Dave^{Subspace Message} 19:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Got to disagree. What "everything"? I'm having trouble finding ANYTHING non-humanoid about them. Bipedal, standard arms, standard legs, and yes, those are eyes. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 20:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The way to resolve this would be to look at what production sources call them. -- Capricorn (talk) 05:46, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Splitting "Shroomies"

I'd like to suggest that the "Shroomies" part of this article be split to its own page. Firstly, as can be seen in the above discussion, it has been disputed whether these actually are "non-humanoids." Secondly, the amount of info on this page about these particular aliens is much more than info about any of the other listed non-humanoids. --Defiant (talk) 12:21, September 8, 2013 (UTC)

Support, valid reasoning in my opinion, especially on the info argument, which is enough to warrant a page onto itself. Pages like these are, in my opinion, intended as "list" pages on subjects on which no, or extremely limited info is available...--Sennim (talk) 12:32, September 8, 2013 (UTC)

Support, although I'm not sure I like the idea of naming the new article "Shroomie". That was a background name only; a casual reader wouldn't know what to search for. That said, I can't really think of a good alternative. - Mitchz95 (talk) 15:12, September 8, 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - Where was it ever said that these kinds of pages were only for stuff where little information was available? Like the page name says, it's for unnamed things, simple as that. I'm very worried about the precedent of moving this kind of information to their own pages with ad hoc names, just because we feel they've outgrown the pages they're on. It's bound to become extremely arbitrary very quickly, maybe less so with the rather scarce unnamed-non humanoids set of pages, but definatly with for example all the Unnamed humanoids, Unnamed planets, or Unnamed engineering tools pages (which surely must follow similar rules if we're to have consistency).

Btw: The concern if they're non-humanoid or not is a valid one; but it has absolutely nothing to do with splitting. if they're humanoid, then (for now) all that would mean is that they should need to be moved to Unnamed humanoids (22nd century). -- Capricorn (talk) 05:45, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Come to think of it; given that the length is mostly due to the extensive discussion of the design, maybe spinning that section off into an article on the model would be a solution more in line with established practice? -- Capricorn (talk) 05:52, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Remark--The naming is not as "ad hoc" as you make it out to be. Is has been common practice at MA to use names generally used by the production staff in valid background resources, especially by the ones who created the items in question, in lieu of instances where no in-universe designations are available, no matter if they seem "flippant" (case in point: USS Alka-Selsior). That being said, I see merit in your other arguments, and your split suggestion seems like a nice alternative. By the way, a casual reader does not know what to look for, period. It's unnamed in-universe;)--Sennim (talk) 10:29, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

There's still a difference between a name that really was intended for use (but just didn't make it for whatever reasons) and a name that clearly is an inofficial nickname. "Shroomies" clearly is a case of the latter, but not the former, so we should not use it as an article title. I agree with the comment that it might be moved to a different "unnamed" page (although, if we can't be sure at all whether they are "humanoid" or "non-humanoid", the best place would be a list that assumes neither), but oppose a split to "Shroomies". -- Cid Highwind (talk) 10:47, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Following your line of reasoning, the example of Alka-Selsior, then, is not a valid article title either (the study model was never intended for use in the first place). Anyway, that is for another occasion. As for naming, how about "unnamed aliens (+century and Quadrant)" (this would circumvent the whole humanoid/non-humanoid question) and for the case at hand: "Unnamed "Silent Enemy" alien(s)" ?--Sennim (talk) 11:21, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

But the model did make it to the screen, and supposedly had a decal with that name on it at the time. That makes it "invisible, but there" - which is one of the weakest types of resource we allow, but still a little more than "a funny moniker used by some production guys while internally talking about stuff". :) If you want to bring the validity of the Alka-Selsior up for discussion, you might even have my support in questioning it (because I believe we are straying too far from what's considered "canon" at times) - but for the time being, it seems to be a stronger name than "Shroomies".

I think it's a good idea to get rid of humanoid/non-humanoid in the title (because we most often don't know), but there's a problem with the alternative suggestions as well: we often don't know their home quadrant, either, the century is subjective (these aliens might have first been encountered in the 22nd century, but that doesn't mean they don't exist earlier or later). Still, it might still be preferable to "humanoid/non-humanoid". -- Cid Highwind (talk) 11:49, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

"we often don't know their home quadrant, either, the century is subjective ", no argument there, as this is absolutely the case. But doesn't this hold true then, for all the other "Unnamed Humanoids/Non-humanoids (+century)" pages. The way I see it, as they are in-universe pages, the in-universe people (mostly from Earth perspective) do not know themselves, so (in-universally) designating them with time and place of first (and often only, as far as we know) encounter seems as good as any other. Perhaps, in order to minimize befuddlement, we could limit ourself to the century then, such as "Unnamed aliens (22nd Century)", as is currently the case. I think for a real world article, "Unnamed "Silent Enemy" alien model" would do. My two cents...--Sennim (talk) 12:26, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

To clarify my "ad hoc" comment; I'm not saying Shroomies is an ad-hoc name, but merely that once we start splitting of articles from the unnamed xxx type pages, there's going to be a lot of pages of the format "[generic term] ([name of episode they were in because the name we've settled on is so damn generic])". (the generic term probably being something like "species", "planet", "guard", etc.). Some fiction wikis handle stuff that way, and I've always found our way superior from a searching standpoint.

Considering the whole humanoid/non-humanoid debate: again, that's really not relevant to the split. Either we split the Shroomies of and it's irrelevant, or we don't and there should be a sepperate discussion on keeping it here or moving it to unnamed humanoids, or as Sennin suggest restructure the whole system. But in any case, it's a different question altogether, and could we have it somewhere else please? -- Capricorn (talk) 12:29, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Hence my final remark, I was reverting back to your suggestion to split of the production POV part into its own article--Sennim (talk) 12:45, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Oppose split to "Shroomies". Support moving them to Unnamed humanoids (22nd century), since the "definition" makes it pretty clear they were humanoids. We also have other options for dealing with appendix sections in "list" articles beyond splitting it off. - Archduk3 07:50, January 8, 2014 (UTC)