Preparing for PZ2 metawishlist

[Milurian]

So we wouldn’t do domestics on the main wishlist? While I get some don’t like it, I still think domestics have a spot in Planet Zoo.

Or would it be I can place “domestic cow” in my wishlist, but if I want the Watusi cow I would need to be on the domestics wishlist?

Ironically the watsui is the one cow breed that might get an exception since its a hybrid of the taurine and indicus cattle species but yes most domestic breeds will be simplified to their species so domestic cow will probably default to taurine cattle but if you said zebu that would go to indicus.
We will do domestics at least the ones that are distinct species maybe some exceptions can be made for those that are subspecies but that is going to be a group decision.

Also what do we feel about hybrids since they do happen how should we split for instance split the watusi cattle or golden crocodile.

I mean I understand why, but wouldn’t that also limit people’s lists? Granted, subspecies are also a tough situation so I understand it.

A domestic chicken could be one of hundreds of breeds, so individually bringing each choice down lower on the list.

That is currently the largest problem with domestics on the meta wishlist is that all the breeds split the vote but most would be happy with any (not insane) breed which made then seem alot less desired than they actually were.

Dingo gets exemption but we can't vote for brown bears or tigers, wow that's going to upset a lot of people.

brown bears and tiger species status arent taxonomically in question dingos are heavily debated the asm marks it as a domestic dog currently planet zoo marks it as a gray wolf and there is now researchers saying there may be sufficient evidence to split it from both so unlike bears or tiger wherever we put it it will cause debates.

If we find other cases of species status in question they may also get exceptions based on the strength of the separate species argument.

 

[TheYeti]

There really is no need for the meta-list to be anymore sub-specific than an overarching PZ2 community wishlist. The game isn't even official confirmed or announced yet, and until then there is no reason to start dividing what people want from PZ2 DLCs vs the base game. Plus it wouldn't really matter if we even did divide things up into DLC or base game lists; Frontier is going to save some, if not most, of the top-voted-for new species for future DLCs regardless. Not all the communities top wants are going to appear in base game PZ2.

That's exactly the point I was making.

 

[Milurian]

That's exactly the point I was making.

whether or not it makes sense to split the vote for base game or dlc the wishlist will inevitably have to be for base game only conceiving of anything else is pointless.
We have no idea what the structure of the game will be so we cant structure the wishlist in a way that wont need to be rehauled when the game comes out and then there is the fact that close to 100 animals will be added immediately destroying any coherence the data had by immediately eliminating a majority of participants and also making the top animals become less coherent as they will be further down peoples wish lists.
Unless you can find a way to make the wishlist in a way that doesnt mean we will have to redo it when the game comes out and shows exactly what types of animals will be added and how whilst also allowing for the wishlist to retain a consistent reliable voter pool to ensure coherent data then we cannot make a basegame and dlc wishlist.

 

[SpookDoc]

That's exactly the point I was making.

Apologies, I guess I didn’t make it clear enough I was agreeing with you and just adding additional commentary on the topic.

Ironically the watsui is the one cow breed that might get an exception since its a hybrid of the taurine and indicus cattle species but yes most domestic breeds will be simplified to their species so domestic cow will probably default to taurine cattle but if you said zebu that would go to indicus.
We will do domestics at least the ones that are distinct species maybe some exceptions can be made for those that are subspecies but that is going to be a group decision.

Also what do we feel about hybrids since they do happen how should we split for instance split the watusi cattle or golden crocodile.

That is currently the largest problem with domestics on the meta wishlist is that all the breeds split the vote but most would be happy with any (not insane) breed which made then seem alot less desired than they actually were.

brown bears and tiger species status arent taxonomically in question dingos are heavily debated the asm marks it as a domestic dog currently planet zoo marks it as a gray wolf and there is now researchers saying there may be sufficient evidence to split it from both so unlike bears or tiger wherever we put it it will cause debates.

If we find other cases of species status in question they may also get exceptions based on the strength of the separate species argument.

I really don’t think there’s any need to over-think/complicate this meta-list with what qualifies as species. After all, many of the world’s top scientists aren’t going to even have the exact same thoughts (and they know a lot more than most of us haha), so I think anything that has a species-level taxonomic name is fair game, regardless of how heavily debated it’s status is or if some scientists place it at a lower taxonomic level.

Honestly, the best solution for management/functionality of the meta-list would be to require voters to submit all species in their scientific name form. But this is likely too tedious to expect from most potential voters and we want to ensure a decent pooling of participants.

 

[random goat]

So since Frontier may already be working on plans for PZ2, I want to try and help guide the potential aquatic roster while it's still possible. If I were to make a PZ2 base game aquatic meta-list soon, one that's not in any way intended to supplant the larger meta-list, is that something that you all would be okay with? Do you think it would get enough participation to be worth it?

Another thing that I would like to do, is to create a discussion thread where we can try to coordinate which aquatic species we vote for on the larger list. For example, I think some sort of trevally would be a must-have eventually if PZ2 gets large bony fish. If others feel the same way, we could try to reach a consensus on a trevally species to push for, in order to increase the chances of getting one over if we had all voted for separate species.

Excuse me if I'm a bit dismissive but we're debating on including every animal in only one place (call it the Complete Animal Meta-wishlist if you wish). And there seems to be a consensus that all the fully-aquatic animals would be eligible there, from krill to whales.

Don't get me wrong: your willingness to start your own dedicated list for aquatic animals is of great value and nothing stops you from doing so, but I think it might be a bit redundant and the participation would not be that high.

 

[Milurian]

Apologies, I guess I didn’t make it clear enough I was agreeing with you and just adding additional commentary on the topic.


I really don’t think there’s any need to over-think/complicate this meta-list with what qualifies as species. After all, many of the world’s top scientists aren’t going to even have the exact same thoughts (and they know a lot more than most of us haha), so I think anything that has a species-level taxonomic name is fair game, regardless of how heavily debated it’s status is or if some scientists place it at a lower taxonomic level.

Honestly, the best solution for management/functionality of the meta-list would be to require voters to submit all species in their scientific name form. But this is likely too tedious to expect from most potential voters and we want to ensure a decent pooling of participants.

whelp time to add nigerian pygmy hippo as its own species XD but in all seriousness this wont be a big issue since its fairly uncommon to not have an agreed upon classification and when that happens it will be a quick judgment call.

adding species name requirements was discussed but ultimately decided against due to other lists using the system having people struggle with the system as well as just general accessibility.

 

[Milurian]

So since Frontier may already be working on plans for PZ2, I want to try and help guide the potential aquatic roster while it's still possible. If I were to make a PZ2 base game aquatic meta-list soon, one that's not in any way intended to supplant the larger meta-list, is that something that you all would be okay with? Do you think it would get enough participation to be worth it?

Another thing that I would like to do, is to create a discussion thread where we can try to coordinate which aquatic species we vote for on the larger list. For example, I think some sort of trevally would be a must-have eventually if PZ2 gets large bony fish. If others feel the same way, we could try to reach a consensus on a trevally species to push for, in order to increase the chances of getting one over if we had all voted for separate species.

We are under the impression that aquatics will be apart of PZ2 so are already included in the main wishlist which at this point will have all animals so no need to have a separate list. having multiple separate list will only confuse participants and reduce overall participation to both lists. You are more than willing to help curate the main list if you would like this is an open community project.

The separate discussion thread is an interesting idea and might be worth doing but in all likelihood people will join the forums beeline straight towards the wishlist and leave which is exactly how I and many others started our times on this forum so using it to build a consensus before people vote wont work but will be good to help spread ideas and wants.

 

[Mjmannella]

adding species name requirements was discussed but ultimately decided against due to other lists using the system having people struggle with the system as well as just general accessibility.

I don't see how it limits accessibility. If you already have a device in which you can submit a response, you can absolutely take 2 second to yoink the Latin name. That adds a more more clarity to the data while also generating more educated voters. I'm fine with a smaller quantity if it means a higher quality.

 

[random goat]

I really like where all this debate is going and I think we have reached some degree of consensus in a few aspects that seemed controversial.

At this point of the conversation I think that there are some hot topics that are still to be further discussed, tailored and agreed.

-Collecting data: Python code (@SuzieSky) vs. Microsoft Forms (@SpookDoc ). I see pros and cons for each method.

Again the Microsoft Forms method is very intuitive and seems to transfer data to Excel easily. But I see two major cons or things that would yet need some clarification:

1) Dealing with different names for the same animal species. That was one of the most energy-draining issues when using Excel to tally the votes. And this method doesn't seem to solve it? It would still need manual and vote-by-vote checking to group the votes where necessary (eg. Lar gibbon + white handed gibbon). People like @Fini could do that I guess but requires lots of time. I believe Suzie's code can already automatically handle that for a decent number of species.

2) The target audience. I don't necessarily agree that making people fill in an external survey would lure a greater participation. Sure it could be linked in every platform, but so could a Frontier forum link, as it's been done until now. You're also asking people for their email address, and many might be reluctant to share that. Frontier having access to your email address is far more safe than giving it to a stranger. Voting here in the forum would also give some feel of reward and incentive and greater feel that you can directly influence the game's decision making (CMs check this forums but there's not proof they would check an external form).


The main issue I see with Suzie's method is transferability of that code and having to continuously tailor and adapt it to new ambiguous flying or aquatic species popping up. It would be a lot on Suzie's shoulders but it's up to them. People can still contribute to curate, double-check and present the data.


-Urgency of creating the meta-wishlist. I still think we got plenty of time but I see many people, with valid arguments, advocating to start this ASAP. Because ofthis, my next point:

-Are we at a point of creating a dedicated Discord server/channel for the people involved in this? Would everyone be happy about that? It would help loads to coordinate privately I think. I'd be happy to creating it myself if people are up for it.

 

[TheYeti]

I really like where all this debate is going and I think we have reached some degree of consensus in a few aspects that seemed controversial.

At this point of the conversation I think that there are some hot topics that are still to be further discussed, tailored and agreed.

-Collecting data: Python code (@SuzieSky) vs. Microsoft Forms (@SpookDoc ). I see pros and cons for each method.

Again the Microsoft Forms method is very intuitive and seems to transfer data to Excel easily. But I see two major cons or things that would yet need some clarification:

1) Dealing with different names for the same animal species. That was one of the most energy-draining issues when using Excel to tally the votes. And this method doesn't seem to solve it? It would still need manual and vote-by-vote checking to group the votes where necessary (eg. Lar gibbon + white handed gibbon). People like @Fini could do that I guess but requires lots of time. I believe Suzie's code can already automatically handle that for a decent number of species.

2) The target audience. I don't necessarily agree that making people fill in an external survey would lure a greater participation. Sure it could be linked in every platform, but so could a Frontier forum link, as it's been done until now. You're also asking people for their email address, and many might be reluctant to share that. Frontier having access to your email address is far more safe than giving it to a stranger. Voting here in the forum would also give some feel of reward and incentive and greater feel that you can directly influence the game's decision making (CMs check this forums but there's not proof they would check an external form).


The main issue I see with Suzie's method is transferability of that code and having to continuously tailor and adapt it to new ambiguous flying or aquatic species popping up. It would be a lot on Suzie's shoulders but it's up to them. People can still contribute to curate, double-check and present the data.


-Urgency of creating the meta-wishlist. I still think we got plenty of time but I see many people, with valid arguments, advocating to start this ASAP. Because ofthis, my next point:

-Are we at a point of creating a dedicated Discord server/channel for the people involved in this? Would everyone be happy about that? It would help loads to coordinate privately I think. I'd be happy to creating it myself if people are up for it.

I think these are some issues best discussed among the creators who eventually have to deal with it.

I'm no coding expert, but from the work I've done in R Studio, I know it should be possible to create a script in which certain names are consistently converted to the chosen dominant species name. Of course this would give some issues with non-popular species, but I think it should definitely be fixable for the - let's say - top 100/200 species.
I imagine there are possibilities to just copy-paste all lists from this forum to an excel sheet and enter that into a programme (again not sure about Python, but it should work in R) and count the mentions of each species.

I think it would be good to have a dedicated channel/group for people involved, and am happy to be part of this.

 

[Aramar]

I'm late to the party, but I think the less restrictions the better.

-Each person gets an X amount of votes, let's say 150.
-There are no ratios. Each user can decide if they vote for 102 mammals and 48 birds, or just 150 mammals, or just 150 birds or just 150 exhibits...
-We shouldn't indicate what category the animal is. If I vote for an ostrich, let's Frontier decide if it's a habitat, aviary, tank or exhibit animal.
-To avoid any mistakes and make life easier for the people in charge, each user should add the scientifc name of the animal to avoid confusion since some animals have several names. It's very easy, it can be found on the wikipedia.

 

[Milurian]

I really like where all this debate is going and I think we have reached some degree of consensus in a few aspects that seemed controversial.

At this point of the conversation I think that there are some hot topics that are still to be further discussed, tailored and agreed.

-Collecting data: Python code (@SuzieSky) vs. Microsoft Forms (@SpookDoc ). I see pros and cons for each method.

Again the Microsoft Forms method is very intuitive and seems to transfer data to Excel easily. But I see two major cons or things that would yet need some clarification:

1) Dealing with different names for the same animal species. That was one of the most energy-draining issues when using Excel to tally the votes. And this method doesn't seem to solve it? It would still need manual and vote-by-vote checking to group the votes where necessary (eg. Lar gibbon + white handed gibbon). People like @Fini could do that I guess but requires lots of time. I believe Suzie's code can already automatically handle that for a decent number of species.

2) The target audience. I don't necessarily agree that making people fill in an external survey would lure a greater participation. Sure it could be linked in every platform, but so could a Frontier forum link, as it's been done until now. You're also asking people for their email address, and many might be reluctant to share that. Frontier having access to your email address is far more safe than giving it to a stranger. Voting here in the forum would also give some feel of reward and incentive and greater feel that you can directly influence the game's decision making (CMs check this forums but there's not proof they would check an external form).


The main issue I see with Suzie's method is transferability of that code and having to continuously tailor and adapt it to new ambiguous flying or aquatic species popping up. It would be a lot on Suzie's shoulders but it's up to them. People can still contribute to curate, double-check and present the data.


-Urgency of creating the meta-wishlist. I still think we got plenty of time but I see many people, with valid arguments, advocating to start this ASAP. Because ofthis, my next point:

-Are we at a point of creating a dedicated Discord server/channel for the people involved in this? Would everyone be happy about that? It would help loads to coordinate privately I think. I'd be happy to creating it myself if people are up for it.

I am happy to move over to a discord server since I think we do need get an idea of who is actually involved and who isnt

I agree asking for people to fill out an external survey will cause more issues with people having to leave the official forums to do it.
How I do my lists albiet not the best method is copy the list into google sheets which has a code to tell me if the name already exists and highlights it I find the name add one to the total and move on. Im happy to take the manual task of converting all the lists to a standardised name I have the time for it and find data entry relaxing.

I don't see how it limits accessibility. If you already have a device in which you can submit a response, you can absolutely take 2 second to yoink the Latin name. That adds a more more clarity to the data while also generating more educated voters. I'm fine with a smaller quantity if it means a higher quality.

This was discussed before but the person who runs the plant wishlist was the one who originally brought it up since that is how they run their list and have run into issues getting people to adhere to the rules. It also makes logical sense the more barriers in place and the more work someone needs to do the less likely they will be to participate it is an accessibility issue albeit a very small one if people cannot even take the time to check their wishlists for accurate species level additions which happens at least once in every list I have sorted they arent going to take the time to write out scientific names.

 

[Milurian]

I think these are some issues best discussed among the creators who eventually have to deal with it.

I'm no coding expert, but from the work I've done in R Studio, I know it should be possible to create a script in which certain names are consistently converted to the chosen dominant species name. Of course this would give some issues with non-popular species, but I think it should definitely be fixable for the - let's say - top 100/200 species.
I imagine there are possibilities to just copy-paste all lists from this forum to an excel sheet and enter that into a programme (again not sure about Python, but it should work in R) and count the mentions of each species.

I think it would be good to have a dedicated channel/group for people involved, and am happy to be part of this.

I have used R previously and while it is indeed capable of doing this R tend to be picky about formatting which will become a problem in names with commas, hyphens and proper nouns which creates a ton of variation in spelling.

I also agree we need to start making a distinction between those actually making the list and those just participating in the discussion

 

[Mjmannella]

It also makes logical sense the more barriers in place and the more work someone needs to do the less likely they will be to participate it is an accessibility issue albeit a very small one if people cannot even take the time to check their wishlists for accurate species level additions which happens at least once in every list I have sorted they arent going to take the time to write out scientific names.

This doesn't really rebut anything I said, it's just re-iterating your argument. If people can't take the 20 seconds to copy-paste a Latin name, then I don't think they're giving qualitative data.

 

[Stygi]

I don't see how it limits accessibility. If you already have a device in which you can submit a response, you can absolutely take 2 second to yoink the Latin name. That adds a more more clarity to the data while also generating more educated voters. I'm fine with a smaller quantity if it means a higher quality.

but people have to do that for the 100+ species they select, which will take a long time

 

[Mjmannella]

That's assuming vote collectors will want to manage 100+ submissions from dozens of people

 

[random goat]

Well they better want to. I am sure they do because the current metawishlists have hundreds of participants and they didn't have scientific names.

The more submissions the more power and relevance you give to your data. In fact that was my main argument against starting new metawishlists from scratch on a frequent basis. Your data inherently loses value.

 

[Mjmannella]

Well they better want to. I am sure they do because the current metawishlists have hundreds of participants and they didn't have scientific names.

And that also had a lot of compromised data due to arbitrary groupings, which is how we ended up with a gibbon nobody wanted anymore. To prevent this in the future, we need clear data with objective and consistent quality that eliminates potential bias and subjectivity because of what's often touted as "common sense".

 

[TheYeti]

Well they better want to. I am sure they do because the current metawishlists have hundreds of participants and they didn't have scientific names.

The more submissions the more power and relevance you give to your data. In fact that was my main argument against starting new metawishlists from scratch on a frequent basis. Your data inherently loses value.

I'm with @random goat here. If we really want to give a representative sample of the community, we should lower the participation barrier. Otherwise it'll just be the priorities of a small active 'elite' of prominent forum users. In this case quantity = quality.

This doesn't really rebut anything I said, it's just re-iterating your argument. If people can't take the 20 seconds to copy-paste a Latin name, then I don't think they're giving qualitative data.

I don't see any correlation between the ability/desire to look up latin names, and the ability to express one's hopes/demands/wishes for animals in the game.

In the end we will need to convert all the scientific names to common names anyway, because nobody is going to care about a list that is full of things we've never heard of.

I do agree with @Mjmannella that lists eventually become less representative if we get similar - but not the same - species in the game. i.e. many people wouldn't need a lar gibbon after the siamang. That's why I am in favour of either making a new list or allowing resubmissions after the base game is released.

 

[Markiz]

I'm with @random goat here. If we really want to give a representative sample of the community, we should lower the participation barrier. Otherwise it'll just be the priorities of a small active 'elite' of prominent forum users. In this case quantity = quality.

Well put, was about to write something in same spirit, but you said it simpler