The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. ‑Scottywong| speak _ 16:02, 29 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of solitary animals[edit]

List of solitary animals (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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If done properly, this list will include almost all animal species in the world--MiguelMadeira (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Retain. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to find references. I did a Google search on "what animals are loners?" and this article popped up first, answered my question, so I could go back to writing my article. Then I noticed that it was flagged for deletion. Say what?! Coming here to read why, the explanation is that if all such animals were listed, it would be too long. If that is the case, change the title to "List of familiar solitary animals" or some other qualifier.
  

In my case, I wanted to find some quick examples for a social essay... "bear" and "tiger" were the best for my essay. Sure, in hindsight, I already knew that, but it was a quick way to tickle my mind. That is the beauty of the Internet, especially how Google searches and Wikipedia make it easy.

The article works. Effectiveness is the measure. Miguel Madeira does not understand the value because his definition of "properly" is flawed. What he means to say is "comprehensively", which in this case would be improper because it defeats the purpose of the article. This is a useful article. Leave it. ClassicalScholar 09:46, 13 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClassicalScholar (talk • contribs)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and/or redirect to Solitary animal, where a list already appears. I agree that a well-done stand-alone list would be a daunting task, several prominent examples are all that's needed. -- Tavix ^(talk) 15:15, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - as noted, this is a hole without bottom. Even solitary animal strikes me as somewhat superfluous and containing completely arbitrary examples. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

added re categorization: I wouldn't bother with turning it into a category either. The concept is just too broad to ever find comprehensive application, so we'll end up with a random selection of articles categorized as such, and likely not even containing the cases one would consider particularly illustrative.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:13, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Solitary animal, where a smaller, more manageable list is already included. This is a hopelessly expansive list, and a target of sporadic vandalism to boot. ansh666 18:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Categorize then redirect instead. Note that the reason given for deletion "If done properly, this list will include probably almost all animal species in the world" is incorrect. As the main article (Solitary animals) states, this is not a list of animals that may be solitary at some point in their lives, but for most of their life.

In any case, solitariness is an adaptation, and many adaptations are already categorized at Category:Animals by adaptation, even if they have numerous entries (the main objection to the list). While the main article (Solitary animals) can summarize, it should not have an exhaustive list. That belongs to a category.

1. Create a new category under Category:Animals by adaptation called Category:Solitary animals
2. For each animal in the List of solitary animals,
   1. Add it to Category:Solitary animals.
   2. Ensure that the citation to solitariness (in the list, if any) is included in the animal's article.
3. Add Category:Solitary dolphins and Solitary animals to Category:Solitary animals
4. Redirect List of solitary animals to Category:Solitary animals

Dpleibovitz (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, no new categories. Be Aware of category clutter, we don't need categories for every conceivable adaptation. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorize then redirect instead. This seems to be a high-quality response that dovetails with WP guidelines, so I agree with it. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Retain. This is an absurd case of railroading. What is the verifiable source of "If done properly, this list will include almost all animal species in the world" because it is nonsense. Eddaido (talk) 23:34, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"absurd"? "railroading"? "nonsense"? Language as immoderate as this seems, in the context, lost and confused to me. Can you explain what you are trying to communicate? --Epipelagic (talk) 03:13, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• About the "if done properly, this list will include almost all animal species in the world". Take, not the animals, not the chordates, not the mammals, not the Carnivora, but only the felids. Solitary species:

Tiger (Panthera tigris)

Jaguar (Panthera onca)

Leopard (Panthera pardus)

Snow leopard (Panthera uncia)

Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)

Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi)

Marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata)

Bay cat (Catopuma badia)

Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii)

Caracal (Caracal caracal)

African golden cat (Caracal aurata)

Serval (Caracal serval)

Pantanal cat (Leopardus braccatus)

Colocolo (Leopardus colocolo)

Geoffroy's cat (Leopardus geoffroyi)

Kodkod (Leopardus guigna)

Southern tigrina (Leopardus guttulus)

Andean mountain cat (Leopardus jacobitus)

Pampas cat (Leopardus pajeros)

Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis)

Oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus)

Margay (Leopardus wiedii)

Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis)

Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx)

Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus)

Bobcat (Lynx rufus)

Cougar (Puma concolor)

Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi)

Leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis)

Iriomote cat (Prionailurus bengalensis iriomotensis)

Flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps)

Rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus)

Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus)

Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul)

Jungle cat (Felis chaus)

Sand cat (Felis margarita)

Black-footed cat (Felis nigripes)

Wildcat (Felis silvestris)

Chinese mountain cat (Felis silvestris bieti)

(all except lion, domestic cat and cheetah); even if I am wrong and one or two of the above are not really solitary, we have dozens of solitary animals in only one family; or look to the 400,000 species of coleoptera - besides the Nicrophorus (68 species), there is any other that it is not solitary? Perhaps, but even if only half (instead that, as I suppose, more than 95%) of the coleoptera are solitary, we will have a list with 200,000 entries, only in one order.--MiguelMadeira (talk) 00:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An additional observation - even with billions of solitary animals to choose, the list gets to include some social animals, like the badger; this indicates that this list is impossible to manage in practice--MiguelMadeira (talk) 00:34, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - About half the 34,000 described fish species shoal at some stage in their life. The rest are basically solitary and should end up on this list. But that's only the beginning. There are over one million described insect species, and perhaps another ten million yet to be described. Most of these are solitary, and will end up on the list. This means the article will need maybe thousands of editors to help it become more complete. It will finish up many tens of megabytes long, much longer than the bible – a truly monumental Wikipedia undertaking and something risible Wikipedia could become widely known for. However, all is not lost. I propose deleting this splendidly silly article and replacing it with its potentially shorter and therefore more manageable and slightly less silly complementary article, List of non-solitary animals. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:38, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - it's a lonely life out there in the animal kingdom. the vast majority of species are solitary. building and managing such a list would be an immense undertaking and the results would be completely uninteresting.Glendoremus (talk) 06:26, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I agree that the cost/benefit of creating such an article would not stack up. Better to use editor resources elsewhere. Knox490 (talk) 06:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. List articles are only really useful if they're manageable and at least substantially complete. This one will never be those things, it will forever be a "List of certain solitary animals". It's pointless now since it only contains a few random examples of the huge number of solitary animals that exist, but would be equally pointless if it were complete because then it would be ridiculously long. Neiltonks (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge selectively to solitary animal and Redirect - Others have made a convincing case that this is just far too large of a grouping to make for an appropriate list topic. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:17, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - plainly useful for our core readership -- students -- and not needlessly duplicative of either the main article or of the category. Bearian (talk) 21:22, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Bearian: I confess to being surprised by this vote of yours (immediately above). To vote in that manner at this stage seems obstructive to achieving a rational result here. You really need to explain whether you are just being willfully obstructive, or whether, having carefully considered the other comments above, you genuinely have credible reasons for for thinking this list might be useful. It is not good enough to just baldly declare that the list is "plainly useful for our core readership", and then leave that authoritarian-style statement dangling, unsupported with a single rationale. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Epipelagic, please be civil and assume good faith. Of course this list would be useful to some of our readers. Whether it would be overwhelming, or less useful than a category, for the majority of our readers and users, is another question. Upon review, I see how this list could be just too much to handle. On the balance, a category rather than a lost would be much better in this instance. I know that may not be a really cogent argument, but that is what I see now. Bearian (talk) 23:15, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.