Talk:Therianthropy

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This article was nominated for deletion on November 27, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

[edit] Basis of Scholarly edits unfound

Therianthropy as mentioned in the above article is a "Therianthropy as a subculture does not have any central dogma or tenets, nor any recognized authority", and yet here we are being bombarded with definitions that are uncited. Yes, I see the classical definition listed, but nowhere is anyone trying to show the reality of therianthropy -- and are quite frankly, mocking it.

The validity of portions of the third paragraph under 'Subculture social structure' is uncited, and frankly unfounded in the therian community. Therianthropy is in noway connected with the 'Bears', and is not wrought by video games (Please cite a scientific study, while I will agree it could be, I ask for your proof). There is no interconnection to anything referred to in this third paragraph, but possibly the "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" (remotely if that).

Terrorwolf 22:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC) TerrorWolf Pennsylvania State University

I will agree that I see no real connection between Therianthropy and role gaming except that some Therians might incidentally role game. Of all the Therians I know, only one might be described as a "Gamer" and the incidental gaming that the others have done does not seem to focus on Werewolves. Therians are just about the most "reality based" people I have ever run into.

As for Bears, I have noticed a lot of crossover between the Furry community and the Bear community but I don't know a single Therian associated in any way with the Bear community (which is rather strange since I do know several Gay Therians).

I don't see much connection between the Therian community and Otherkin except, perhaps the Draconics, and there does seem to be a subset of the Dragon community that seems to gravitate toward the Therian community.

Actually, though, Terrorwolf, it's going to be hard to produce much in the way of scholarly material related to therianthropy. The modern community didn't exist earlier than 1993 and Therians are a hardy bunch that simply hasn't presented much in the clinical arena and when they have, it has usually been for tangetial problems - not anything obviously related to Therianthropy.

There is weak research being carried on now but the methods available to individual Therians and other people currently interested have obvious shortcomings (small and nonrepresentative samples, etc.) and can only be used as pilot research. Nothing has had the time to appear in peer reviewed literature. Wolf VanZandt 11/28/05.

[edit] Examples

Should the page contain examples? I am thinking about for instance this tiger guy that has got fangs operated onto him. I think he's quite famous. 惑乱分からん 21:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Therion

Doesn't "therion" more accurately mean "beast" than "wild animal"? --Arny 03:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Otherkin

Can someone please, please, explain to me what the difference is between (spiritual) therianthropy and otherkin. I'm so confused. :-( 86.142.179.66 21:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that therians (in terms of therianthropy) believe they are an animal. Otherkin do not necessarily believe that at all: otherkin may be dragons, or elves, whereas therians might be wolves and falcons. Falcon 02:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Heh, you have reason to be confused. Generally, Otherkin relate to mythological beings; Therians relate to animals that do exit or have existed. The main observable difference is that Otherkin usually claim to be Otherkin whereas many Therians refuse the appelation. Nevertheless, various Ortherkin are more likely to socialize than Therians with Otherkin. In other words, the Otherkin community and the Therian community tend to be distinctly separated.

It's interesting that you have four "Therianthropy vs." sections in the article, yet you don't actually cover the confusing one. 86.136.82.105 23:30, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] semi-protected

I've protected this article from editing by nameless IP's and new users. Over the last couple of days it's been targeted by one or more persons editing from various related IPs. FreplySpang (talk) 15:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are you guys mostly therians or what?

Seriously, why do you all check this article so much? I know that the werelist site has a section on wikipedia.

Yeah, this will probably get reverted, but I'm just interested. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.106.204.67 (talk • contribs).

Several people keep this article on their Watchlist because it's a bit of a magnet for inappropriate additions. FreplySpang (talk) 17:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Mostly, if you edit an article, it remains on your watch-list. It could be for a minor grammatical error, a wikilink addition, or a deletion of badly worded text, but by default it will be watched in future, on the basis editors who showed an interest may well continue to have an interest. Thats why. FT2 (Talk) 18:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In popular culture

Why are you removing this? The idea that therianthropy and its derivatives in various forms exist in popular culture should be noted. It is most certainly NOT "totally worthless fictioncruft" or some such. --Jesse Mulkey 17:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Since it appears that DreamGuy doesn't want a popular culture reference section, I have created a new page based on his advice here: Therianthropy in popular culture. --Jesse Mulkey 21:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Woops...

Sorry about that, Dreamguy. I didn't realize I hadn't read to the last version before trying to revert the vandalism Curps had missed. I must have been too pissed off by TFV to wait. Coyoty 20:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

I'm seeing quite a lot of tension in this talk page between two viewpoints - the therian viewpoint and the mythology viewpoint. Except that they aren't really two viewpoints so much as they are two subjects. I thought. Time for disambiguation? I checked out other subcultures and their related mythologies. The vampire subculture and the vampire folklore page are two separate articles. The otherkin subculture is a separate article from the articles on the folklore of creatures such as elves, dragons and so on. The furry subculture is a separate article from the many types of funny animal, mythical and fictional, that inspire the furry subculture. For that matter, the biker subculture is a different article than motorcycles themselves. Nothing else has subculture material and other material mashed together into one article. But then I look at the therianthropy article and see why. It has very little other than the subculture material. There's not enough mythology to make more than a stub if it were split off. So I decided to be bold and do an expansion that would then justify the disambiguation that's aching to happen. The new therianthropy mythology article can be seen at Therianthropy (mythology), the new subculture article is at Therianthropy (subculture) (the original contents of the Therianthropy article were divided between those two as I thought they should go, feel free to reshuffle, I did not delete anyone's stuff, it is all in there somewhere) and the Therianthropy in popular culture article has been renamed Therianthropy (fiction) in preparation for what I am now doing, creating a Therianthropy disambiguation page. If for some reason I was way too bold in doing the disambiguation and I offended everyone, please don't just revert, since a lot of added material is in the new articles, including citations that had been missing before.Blue *Milk Mathematician 23:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

And User talk:Curps apparently auto-reverted it in less than a minute. I hope that was a program keyed simply to revert anything major, and not just someone who did not even look at my stuff for one minute, who reversed two days of painstaking, highly cited article writing that took me about 20 hours, and I DID NOT DELETE ANYTHING THAT WAS ALREADY THERE, only added material and disambiguated.Blue Milk Mathematician 00:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Me likey. EDIT: I would say go for it, since nobody else has noticed you. Go for it, and don't worry about being bold. I certainly think your move is an improvement. 86.143.156.110 18:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, i would strongly oppose any attempt to disambiguate here in the way mentioned above, as it's completely pointless and unencyclopedic. Being able to ramble on incoherently is not a rationale for such a change. DreamGuy 19:29, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Blue Millky guy, you should be aware that the risk in being bold is that you will be overruled and that your work will be reverted. That's the problem when you do things without discussing them first. We can see from my response and the edit history here that your actions are opposed by the regular editors here, especially as the way you did it violated a number of policies, so I have redirected all the ridiculous fork files you created to this article, as it should be. If in fact there were new things added to those separate articles, instead of whining about it, move them here to the real article and see if they pass muster with the rest of the editors, or at least take the time to try to explain what you are doing. So, yeah, being bold is fine, but when what you do is undone by other people, you have no right to complain and try to act like people were unfairly screwing up your work. DreamGuy 19:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Okay, Putting Mythology in the Main Article Then

I will follow your advice and put all my work on therianthropy in mythology back into the main article to see how it is received by the group. However, I wanted to refute your accusations:

1) I wasn't trying to be sneaky, and I did take the time to explain what I was doing, that is why I posted about this issue on the therianthropy talk page, plus the talk page of nearly every individual who had edited "Therianthropy" within the last two months, plus the talk pages of the disambiguation pages I'd created (or edited, in the case of Therianthropy (fiction)).

2) I wasn't complaining. I was under the impression that my work was being auto-reverted, since the individual who reverted it (Curps) did so in less than one minute (showing that my work hadn't even been read through) and because Curps's page said that Curps was on vacation. Therefore, I was trying to initiate discussion to understand the situation and see what others felt.

3) I was under the impression that my work was liked, because I only got positive or neutral feedback on it for quite some time, until DreamGuy replied on this talk page. Therefore, I thought it was either an auto-reversion or people who had gotten so used to vandals that their trigger fingers were itchy for the "revert" button and they mistook me for a vandal. This impression was strenghthened by the fact that, even though this article was edited VERY regularly, nobody had anything to say about my work on the talk page here except for one user who liked it, until DreamGuy posted above.

4) The way I did it did not violate a number of policies, not even the WP:FORK as I understand it. I explained everything I did as I did it, and I gave my reasons why, in considerable detail (what DreamGuy called "ramble on incoherently" above, apparently he wants to reprimand me for not explaining myself while simultaneously reprimanding me for explaining myself too much). The disambiguation page was created, as I said, as a placeholder and possibly permanent page showing the individual disambiguation links, and so that there wouldn't be anything that appeared sneaky in my going around making links to point at my newly created page on mythology (that is, I wouldn't appear to be trying to re-route links without doing the neccessary disambiguation). I was not trying to spawn useless mirror pages, I simply followed the instructions on the disambiguation instruction page. It wasn't my fault that the original page got reverted, thus creating redundancy.

5) My work was not "reverted multiple times and strongly opposed" as DreamGuy said, it was only reverted once by Curps, apparently accidentally, and then once by DreamGuy himself (when he erased all my original work by making Therianthropy (mythology) and Therianthropy (subculture) into redirect pages). It was not "strongly" opposed as DreamGuy said, at least not by anyone other than DreamGuy who cared to post on talk pages about it.Blue Milk Mathematician 03:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Dreamguy. I didn't see any concensus before the changes were made, and wasn't sure if I had missed something. The method and style of the changes did disturb me, but I didn't have the opportunity or desire to take care of it at the time, and decided it was someone else's problem. (Sorry, DG.) I'm watching too many topics already and this wasn't a priority. I didn't respond to you or complain because I didn't feel like it, and it didn't mean I approved of your changes. The subject doesn't need so many different articles. Coyoty 19:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you were too busy to disapprove on a talk page. I really would have stopped what I was doing if I had any idea that it wasn't reverted by accident. I was hoping that I'd receive guidance and opinions, good or bad, which is why I put notes like this one that I put on your talk page, but when I got ignored, I assumed "none of these people care enough to oppose me" instead of "they all oppose me, but don't care enough to mention it". I'm not really about whining about getting my stuff reverted. I was only whining about being insulted so badly and accused of rule-breaking when I'd acted in good faith. Blue Milk Mathematician 23:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved

My mythology additions were removed from therianthropy because they supposedly belong in lycanthropy, according to DreamGuy. I guess therianthropy is being shaped as an article that is entirely resistant to mythology about therianthropy, so I moved my therianthropy mythology section there. All of my sources are cited. I'm writing about this here because I don't want to be accused of being "sneaky" again. Yes, I'm totally honest about what I'm doing.Blue Milk Mathematician 01:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations?

Currently, therianthropy breaks Wikipedia rules about no original research and verifiability and using websites as reliable sources. Therianthropy resists all mythology-based material, so it is almost entirely about a subculture with statements supported by websites. The only reference material cited is an 1886 work and a 1933 work, which could not apply to a subculture that started in the 1990s.

Published sources that could be used for citations do exist, three books:

Cohen, D. (1996) Werewolves. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0525652078
Greene, R. (2000) The Magic of Shapeshifting. York Beach, ME: Weiser. ISBN 1578631718
Steiger, B. (1999) The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings. Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink. ISBN 1578590787

I had added in parenthetical citations using the MLA style manual to the subcultural portions of the therianthropy article, but they got reverted in all the confusion I inadvertently caused. If anyone wants to, they can add in my old citations that got reverted. Otherwise, I'll probably manually add the citations back in myself after a week or so, if nobody objects. This means you need to actually disagree with me on a talk page this time, instead of hoping I'm telepathic and will pick up your silent disapproval and then getting pissed afterwards. Blue Milk Mathematician 23:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Done

Okay, I've added this stuff back in now. I might add a bit more later on, I think I lost the file of some of the material I was meaning to add. Blue Milk Mathematician 19:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links?

Each time anyone adds external links of any sort, the whole section gets deleted, often because of nearby vandalism. However, considering how extremely Internet-based the subculture is, some sort of external links section seems almost required. Three or four good links would do it, we don't need a gigantic list. Here are my suggestions, roughly in order of quality:

I'm totally open to other suggestions, I think we should have something! Suggest all the external links you want, vote thumbs up or down on any that stand out, and then in a couple of weeks, let's actually add the 3 or 4 best ones (unless we get lots of "no external links at all" votes). Blue Milk Mathematician 14:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Eh, seems all right so far, but I'm still leery. Therianthropy sites -- being about a topic that is necessarily subjective -- are hard to judge on quality. And there are a lot, and most people are interested in promoting their pages, so it may be difficult to stop the links list from getting huge. I don't think discussion pages like the first link are really encyclopedic, either, but I'll wait before/if consensus is reached on that issue to remove it.

Sorry for adding my opinion late, though, looks like you've already decided to put one in by now. Switchercat 21:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Going in

OK, looks like nobody objects, so I'm putting them in now. If the entire links section gets deleted again I'm going to just put it back in unless someone gives a reason this time. Blue Milk Mathematician 03:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should we note Therianism?

A few beleive we should since this is a redirect from Therianism. Otherwise, what's the point of redirecting it, if it's not mentioned here. Suttle contrasts between the two, but they still are relivant majorly to some. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mix Bouda-Lycaon (talk • contribs).

I have never heard "therianism" used as a term with a different meaning from "therianthropy," and even if I had, I'm not sure the distinction made is common enough to be notable. Could you cite examples? Also, sign your posts, eh? Switchercat ^talk_cont 22:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I mean, I know it's another term for therianthropy, but the two words don't seem to express different concepts. Best just stick in a word about how "therianism" is an alternate terms, if its neglect bothers you. Switchercat ^talk_cont 23:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oct 12 Cleanup

I cleaned up and NPOV'd a bunch of this article. Right now it's pretty bad, by the way. I guess I'll read up a bit more on the subject and try to help out. Voretus the Benevolent 16:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD?

My first thought on coming across this page was to AfD it. The article is a neologism covered by 90% original research, has very few and poorly cited reliable sources, and very clearly owns it very existence to a POV causing it to fail wikpedia's policy of neutrality without even having to really get into the body of the article (which also fails POV). I would contest most of the basic assumptions the article puts forth by an obviosly biased source. Even the title is POV; Therianthrophy is made up word. It was created by an internet community to help give their group a more "scientific", "official" or "legit" sounding label. Otherkin, lycnathrope, were-(what ever creature), shapeshifter and the such was just getting them laughed at. The section on "Scholarly use of the term" can only be there to try and help justify or help legitimize the "modern usage" section. Why? Because as I've already said Therianthrophy is largely a made up word and has zero "scholarly" use at all. This artilce is a joke.

Still, some people have obviolsy put alot of work into this article and the presentation and formating of the article are actually pretty darn good. The tone of the article reads like an essay but it also strives to try and be scientific and neautral with results that are hit and miss. There is obvious a suprisingly large, even disporportional, number of editors on wikipedia that deal in some way shape or form the entire Otherkin, were, "Therian", New Age, neopaganism, etc realm and I find it hard to believe that some higher standard hasn't been adopted here. The title of this article needs to be scrapped but, in light of the amount of work that has gone into this article, does the possiblity exist that some other eidtors would be interested in a merge/redirect of qulaity and sourcable info to Shapeshifting or lycanthropy or some other more appropriate article? NeoFreak 07:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't remove it entirely

I actually created a Wikipedia account just to make this post. A friend of mine recently mentioned the word therianthropy. I was curious about it so I looked it up in Wikipedia and this was the page I found. If this page hadn't existed, I would have possibly had to hunt around for ages to find a credible source regarding what the term actually meant. Pedantry aside, this seems like a reasonable page to me, but I'm just a layman who isn't obsessed with updating or commenting on Wikipedia pages. Keenman76 16:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)Keenman76

There are alot of things that are useful or of interest to some people that don't qualify for an article in wikipedia. In my opinion this is one of them. Still, if this article has created interest in wikipedia and added another member to the community than it has done some good :) I'll leave you some links on your talk page to help you get started in wikpedia should you choose to stick around. Thanks for your input, make sure you add your thoughts to the article's deletion page as it will do the most there. As a side note you might want to check out the wikifur. NeoFreak 16:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a neologism, established phenomenon

As I noted in my comments against the proposal to delete this page, a quick search of google books shows the word 'therianthropy' used (for the same meaning as used in this article) in 1915. The word has been used more significantly in the last 10 years, but some of my research hints that it may have been in use (in criminal trials) as early as 1570.

The lack of citations in this article is definitely a problem, and it does need to be cleaned up and turned into something more encyclopedic. However, it's a spiritual phenomenon that has been documented by rigorous researchers as existing in stone age tribes. NickArgall 02:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As I've also said, since the word is a Greek conjunction you can no doubt find it in use somewhere. Still, it is neither an accepted or widespread academic term nor is it used in Reliable Sources in the manner that it is portrayed in the article. The article uses it to describe a demographic of New Age adherants to a particular belief system. Neologism. NeoFreak 02:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to merge from Otherkin

All the sources of a rigorous standard about Otherkin are in the context of 'belief in being an animal', ie, therianthropy. Otherkin belief can (and should, IMO) be regarded as a variation on therianthropic belief and be treated in 1 or 2 paragraphs in this article, as opposed to a separate article. NickArgall 02:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The reason Otherkin has a seperate article is because it is in common use in that subculture; however, I agree with the merge on the basis of the Otherkin article/subculture/religion not being notable enough at the moment to merit its own article. Titanium Dragon 03:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say they should be merged into a single page. As I understand, therianthropy is with animals that exist and Otherkin is for animals that don't really exist, so they are quite similar besides that. --CF90 22:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Not really; otherkin is used as a pretty broad term. It encompasses therianthropes, mythics, elves, and vampires, among other odd things. Titanium Dragon 03:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

TD, it looks like you have a more nuanced understanding of 'Otherkin vs Therian' than myself or CF90, can I suggest you do the first run of the merge text? My understanding is the essentially the same as CF90. NickArgall 05:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that sounds very resonable. NeoFreak 02:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split to Therianthropy and Therianthropy (subculture)

Support: I support the split as they are too dissimilar to lump together in one article. Also suggest renaming Therianthropy (mythology) to simply Therianthropy as that is the more generic usage. --Justanother 19:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, as discussed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Therianthropy. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 20:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, I think that a prod should probably be put on Therianthropy (disambiguation) if the split goes through. Does this seem like a good idea to others?Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 20:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Otherkin do not necessarily believe they are animals - the great majority of otherkin I've come across have a dominant humanoid form, not animal. Therefore the merge makes no sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clodaus (talk • contribs) 09:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Without looking again, I got the clear impression from the Otherkin article that they feel that they ARE animals that have a human form in this incarnation. OK, I lied, I am looking again. I just looked again at both and now I am kinda confused as both terms seek to be so broad that they end up meaning the same thing. I see that therian feel that they have an animal aspect, i.e that their spirit is part animal and that they switch to that "nature"? While otherkin have the same idea but lean toward mythical creatures? In that case I would strongly support merge from otherkin as a subset or variation on the theme of therianthropy. And this goes way beyond totemism. --Justanother 16:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The topic is very confusing, which means that we have to be careful that the confusion doesn't taint the actual article and lead to a confusing article. My impression is that the original "Otherkin" were mostly people who thought of themselves as elves, who were gradually joined by people who thought of themselves as dragons and other mythical-creature minorities. However, therians seem to have had a separate (and earlier?) origin as an offshoot of the furry subculture and therians focus on "shifting" instead of reincarnation as their main belief. At some point, the definition of "Otherkin" was expanded to include the psychic vampire subculture as well, which certainly pre-dates the original definition of Otherkin. Which begs the question, is the current definition of "Otherkin" pointlessly large? And should subcultures that developed separately (therians and the psychic vampire subculture) be included under the label? These are hard questions, but they need to be adequately answered before we can do much towards building non-confusing articles. Unfortunately, most of the print sources seem confused themselves, which might mean that these articles are doomed to be either small or confusing until better sources gradually come into print. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 17:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, having some experience in an analogous area and at the risk of sounding trite, I think that articles should be written so as to make them more understandable and that aim generally requires that the editors contributing understand the subject material from a sympathetic viewpoint (putting themselves in the hooves of believers, so to speak). You seem to have that sort of understanding so I support your efforts, if you care to, in fixing the articles to make them specific to the usage they cover and not overly general or confusing. I have found that that can often be done using only the refs already present but just presenting the topic in an understandable manner while removing flagrant POV. --Justanother 17:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to sound harsh or dismissive but I think we should first fix the article as it is. Once we figure out what and how many diffrent articles and subgroups we can get reliable sources for then we can talk more realistically about splits. NeoFreak 01:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's nice to have an opportunity to agree with NeoFreak here - let's focus on putting together good-quality content and defer judgement on splits and whatnot until we've got a collection of content that can be sorted through. My suspicion is that we'll have a lot of difficulty finding secondary sources on the contemporary subcultures, but I'll be very pleased if I'm wrong. NickArgall 05:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If it remains one article, it certainly needs to be organized so that the academic/mythology material and the subcultural material are more clearly separate. Otherwise, we keep having problems where it looks like the academic citations are supporting the subcultural stuff, which simply is misleading. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 19:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think either problem is going to be a concern. I have some likely sources for the subcultural material incoming (as available) on interlibrary loan, and proper use of inline citations should avoid any misconstruction of what references what. On a related note, I've heard some mention of possible use of the term pre-1900 in conjunction with claims of lycanthropy and some 1920s uses in psychology that were off-handedly mentioned as "dubious". Anyone able to scare up concrete examples of either of those? Serpent's Choice 07:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I seem to be the 'historical use defender' guy, I'll make some enquiries at the library later this week. NickArgall 00:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

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