The bulk update request #7489 is active.
remove alias whale (421) -> cetacean (13790)
remove implication baleen_whale (148) -> cetacean (13790)
remove implication sperm_whale (258) -> physeteroid (257)
remove implication physeteroid (257) -> toothed_whale (12334)
Reason: It's come up that having whale as a tag separate from cetacean would be a good idea. Colloquially, a whale is any of the larger cetaceans. Translated into tags, this means whale equals cetacean -dolphin -porpoise. This might not seem to be much of a tag problem until you realize that cetaceans are split into two groups: baleen whales and toothed whales, and that dolphins and porpoises are technically toothed whales, strange as it might seem to some. Getting rid of the baleen_whale and toothed_whale tags would not be a good idea, akin to like getting rid of mongoose and hyena because feline is good enough for all feliforms.
But there is value in having whale as a tag, but we're going to have to be a bit finer about our implications. So, this is the proposal:
- We keep the current baleen_whale and toothed_whale implication trees.
- We unalias whale from cetacean.
- We have whale imply cetacean.
- We have baleen_whale imply whale. Because all baleen whales count as whales.
- We go through and imply all the non-dolphin, non-porpoise toothed whales directly to whale. Toothed_whale would not imply whale itself.
- It turns out that's just sperm_whale and beaked_whale.
- Individual members of archaeoceti will imply whale as appropriate.
- That's just basilosaurid it turns out.
- Fictional whales can also be implied to whale as deemed appropriate.
There's a few dolphin species that have "whale" in their names, but don't actually count as a whale (pilot whales, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, the orca (AKA killer whale), and melon-headed whale). These aren't being whaled since they're clearly dolphins despite the names. I was a bit fuzzy on including narwhals and belugas, but they're actually closely related to porpoises, and the site implies them to dolphin already. I suppose by leaving the current toothed whale implications, we would still be calling them whales even though they wouldn't count as a whale.
The archaeoceti are a bit trickier, since some wouldn't count as dolphins, porpoises, or whales. I've chosen to leave most of them alone as they still had functional legs. Because they're the first known fully aquatic cetaceans and also are big – the smallest known member was about 8 feet 3-4 inches (2.51-2.55 meters) while the biggest species rival the blue whale in length – I'm having basilosaurid imply whale.
I'm just going to imply sperm_whale directly to toothed_whale and whale, and toss physeteroid as being essentially synonymous with sperm_whale. Technically, there's three species of sperm whales, but while it's possible this might change in the future, the pygmy and dwarf sperm whales aren't currently tagged.
I'll let you Users all fight over which fictional cetaceans count as whales or not.
The follow-up BUR:
imply whale -> cetacean imply baleen_whale -> whale imply sperm_whale -> whale imply sperm_whale -> toothed_whale imply beaked_whale -> whale imply basilosaurid -> whale
EDIT: The bulk update request #7489 (forum #400094) has been approved by @Rainbow_Dash.
Updated by auto moderator