Talk:Vegetation

Merge

Okay, we need to discuss what to do with this page. We have this, and we have [[Plants and fungi]]. This page is good, because it focuses not only on how plants are a part of the gameplay, but also lists them. It's bad, however, because it doesn't list fungi (or when it does, it counts them as plants, which is wrong), and it doesn't list unlabeled species. The Plants and fungi page is the exact opposite.

Content-wise, I think it makes sense for us to have a single page that explains how plants and fungi work as gameplay elements, and also detail other misc. stuff like the treasures that are inherently plants and such, and then further down, it lists all known plants with links to them when they have pages, and finally, contains simple sections detailing unnamed plants and fungi. Do we all agree on that?

The article name is the worst part, because "Plant" fits the naming scheme of other such articles, but makes no mention of fungi, which I think is a bad idea. On the flip side, "Plants and fungi" is the name you'd give to a list article, exclusively. We sure as hell can't use "Plant and fungus" for the final article, as that just sounds horribly wrong. I thought about "Flora", and figured that that'd incorporate both plants and fungi, but after some research, I learned that it's for plants only... I also tried searching through the game's strings and the manual, but this "decorative greenery" concept is not named anywhere. Heck, it's barely even acknowledged. For those of you that are reading this and don't quite understand why WE make it a concept, it's simply because plants and fungi have some importance in the games, as not only do they sometimes affect the gameplay itself (read the article for more info), but they're also acknowledged as things on the Piklopedia.

I want to hear your opinions on this. Do you agree about what the page should have, content-wise? And what do you have to say about the potential name for the article? — {Espyo^T} 07:08, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

I agree that one page is enough to describe all the plants and fungi in these games. I also like your idea of naming important gameplay plants and fungi first, and then having the list and the unnamed ones; to me that seems a lot more organized. I've been researching a name and it seems that mycology is regarded by the International Botanical Congress as an official branch of botany. So we could possibly call the page "Botanical objects" or "Botanical organisms". I know it still sort of sounds like it's excluding fungi, but the only other option I could think of was the domain "Eukaryota," which contains both the kingdoms Plantae and Fungi, but also contains Animalia. That being said, it would be neat to create a sort of "Pikmin tree of life" in which the organisms in the game are visually classified into their kingdoms and families... I know the taxonomy of the organisms is inconsistent in the games, but it's just a fleeting idea I had. Scruffy (talk) 08:05, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

I've had the idea of a taxonomy tree too. It's still on my "to do far later" list. The problems with those article names is that they're too inclusive, and too unlikely for people to be searching for. Plus they still sound like exclusively list articles from the name alone. Good ideas, but they won't work. — {Espyo^T} 08:50, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

Well, what if we made "Plant" and "Fungus" two separate pages with references to each other (as in, See also: Fungus)? For the sake of keeping content gameplay-oriented, that would still work, since all labeled fungi in the games serve gameplay purposes. Then we could maybe have some sort of disambiguation page with "Plant", "Fungus", "Enemy" (which we could redirect to "Animal"?), and possibly a separate page about plant-animal and fungi-animal (Puffstool) hybrids. I'm sorry that's such a big suggestion, I don't mean to undermine any ideas you may have had about it. Scruffy (talk) 17:26, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

Suggestions will never be looked at with mean eyes, Scruffy, don't you worry. It could work for the sake of organizing the lists, but other than that, it's no good for referring to as a gameplay element. I think it'd be better to have one article that encapsulates the entirety of the gameplay element concept. The lists can all go into separate articles, for all it's worth. But one central article that both serves as a hub and as the general page to explain what plants/fungi are in a gameplay context, what they're good for in-game, etc. would be better. With your suggestion, we'd have to copy-paste that into both articles, as both plants and fungi are acknowledged in the Piklopedia (well, some, at least), both can be bumped against, both can have enemies hiding that only get revealed when bumped, etc.

PikFan on IRC pointed out the [[Spotcap and Kingcap]] article as well. That is more or less how I envision this final "plant/fungi" article to be, with a section explaining what it is, gameplay-wise, and the rest details on specific and differences. Only problem really is the page name. All in all, I'd say "Plant and fungus" would be a good page name. It contains "fungus", which is important, it's in singular, it feels like an article that'd be explaining both as a single thing (which is what we want, more or less), and I suppose that links in articles would also work: "the Piklopedia also lists a small collection of [[plants and fungi]] that the player comes across" (that would redirect to "Plant and fungus". If there are no objections, I'll rename it to that and merge with the "Plants and fungi" article we currently have. — {Espyo^T} 07:44, 1 July 2015 (EDT)

That does sound like a better solution to me, that makes more sense and is more concise. So more power to you! And if there's any way I could help with this merge, I'm all for it! Scruffy (talk) 14:35, 1 July 2015 (EDT)

Oh, here's an idea! How about vegetation? The Wikipedia article says it's quite inclusive, and it's a term anybody would be comfortable with – readers and editors alike. Seems like linking to it would be easy, and it seems like a perfectly normal article title. The thing is, would "vegetation" really be a good term? Or does it actually exclude fungi yet again? Plus, with vegetation, we'd kinda have to document trees and such as well, as they DO count for what vegetation is. This could distract a bit from the purpose of the "decorative gameplay objects" concept, as most trees and such are in the background. ...Then again, the simple term "plant" we've been using so far should have also covered trees and such, so it's a bit late to be discussing this front now.

Okay, how about this? The article will be called vegetation, and it will focus on all sorts of "greens" (plants and fungi) in the Pikmin universe, even listing them all (background stuff like trees would receive a single sentence at most; we don't need to go crazy). The main focus of the article though would be the in-game map objects that the players can interact with. I think this is the best option we have available, but I'm all ears for suggestions. — {Espyo^T} 06:12, 3 July 2015 (EDT)

Vegetation sounds good to me! It is a general term, not a scientific one, so it's easily all-encompassing. On the subject of trees, I wrote a little [[Plants and fungi#Trees|section]] about them in the old "Plants and fungi" page; they are background but they are still important for providing interesting shadows to the environment. But I just thought of a way they are more important: stumps. One or more stumps exist in almost every area, and they give the gameplay verticality; without them, the landscape would be much flatter. So if we're going as far as explaining static terrain, stumps are more important than the full-fledged trees in the background. Scruffy (talk) 07:59, 3 July 2015 (EDT)

Mhm, agreed. I can't believe I'm actually excited for an article about plants of all things :D. — {Espyo^T} 08:44, 3 July 2015 (EDT)

Changing the name of this page to 'Vegetation and mycobiota'.

This page contains the information on all the plants and fungi in the Pikmin series, therefore it has the name 'Vegetation'. The thing is, fungi are not plants, therefore the term "vegetation" does not apply to them as they are in a whole different kingdom of organisms altogether (the Fungi Kingdom). Due to this, I believe that to have the games' fungi documented here, the correct word of "mycobiota" should be used in the title.

The reason why the word "vegetation" is used anyhow, is because it is the collective noun for plants in a specific habitat or area. The fungus equivalent of this is the proposed word "mycobiota", which is the collective noun for fungi in a geographical region, making it the suitable word to also be used in the title alongside its plant counterpart. — {KawaiiKiwii^T} 23:51, 13 April 2023 (BST)

I like the idea, but "mycobiota" is a really technical word that most people wouldn't have heard of before (I hadn't heard of it before you added it to the area articles). It raises the question of whether Pikipedia is just documenting the scenery of the areas, or whether it's getting into the biological detail of everything you can see in an area. Perhaps the old article name of "Plants and fungi" would be better? Or perhaps the article should be split? I'm really not sure. — Soprano_(talk) 18:58, April 13, 2023 (EDT)

Most people that play games, have most likely came across the words "flora" and "fauna" which are words for the plant and animal kingdom respectively. Considering this, we could use the fungus equivalent which is "funga". People may have still not heard of it like mycobiota, but at least it is easier to determine what it means as it is similar to fungus/fungi. This would also mean we would not use vegetation and use flora instead but I don't think this is a problem as I said previously, most people that play games would've came across that word. — {KawaiiKiwii^T} 00:16, 14 April 2023 (BST)

I agree that flora is definitely a lot more familiar. "Flora and funga" could work. But my main gripe right now is the Glowstem. No matter what, this is neither flora nor funga, but it's definitely a part of what constitutes as the "greenery" of the franchise. Are there any other exception cases like the Glowstem? — {Espyo^T} 09:41, April 17, 2023 (EDT)

I don't believe there is another occurrence like the Glowstem. There are two ways we could go about this, we could pretend that it is a fungus just like Olimar and Louie do, or we could pretend that because it is an LED, which might as well be an OLED, they are 'alive' since they are made of organic material...This is a stretch but I don't believe we have any choice in the matter unless we just change the name to 'Decorations' or something, but that would result in a lot of the content in this page having to be moved elsewhere. Extremely annoying indeed. — {Kiwii_(talk)} 10:10, April 17, 2023 (EDT)

Japanese sources like these scans simply refer to them as 植物^? (lit.: "plants"), for what it's worth. 原生植物^? (lit.: "primitive plants") in the case of the Pikmin 3 guide, following the format of the enemies being "primitive creatures". It may not be accurate, but if even these official sources are collectively calling them that, including the glowstem, it may not be worth worrying about these technicalities. 2 B (talk) 11:42, April 23, 2023 (EDT)

Hmm... maybe we could call it "decorative wildlife"? — {Espyo^T} 10:35, May 7, 2023 (EDT)

If the official scans that 2 B refers to calls them plants, then "Vegetation" fits them well. From a real life perspective, fungi are not plants, but if Nintendo do refer to them as plants in the Pikmin universe, then we probably should keep it consistent with what they have stated. Even though I started this discussion, I am happy to continue calling this page "Vegetation" as it stays consistent with the promotional material Nintendo has released for the Pikmin franchise. — {Kiwii_(talk)} 06:57, May 28, 2023 (EDT)

Unidentified...

I know this is kinda my fault, but many of the plants and fungi listed as "unidentified" here... aren't really. What would be a better way to refer to them? "Unimportant", "lesser", those are all I can think of and they sound kinda awkward... 2 B (talk) 14:09, August 19, 2023 (EDT)