Monstropedia Categories

A proposed first taxonomy

A multi-faceted taxonomy

The limitations of a purely hierarchical taxonomy model have been recognised for many years in academic and information science circles. Consequently, there has been considerable interest in taxonomy structures that offer a more flexible view of how information can be categorised for general use: these alternative approaches are often referred to as faceted, multidimensional or relational taxonomies. The MediaWiki concept is the best tool at our disposal to meet such requirements.

Multi-faceted taxonomies enable the user to navigate through a number of facets of a taxonomy (for example, by culture, shape, element author or creator). They also allow the different facets to be cross-referenced to narrow or widen a search as the user browses the categories (for example, it will be possible to browse and select monsters by a combination of shape, culture and age on Monstropedia).

The following categories reflect the state of the art and can be rearranged if needed . Any testing or refining stages during the project need to include feedback from editors and users. This will avoid the danger of users having a different perspective on what should belong in which category and therefore not being able to find information.

On top of the below-listed creatures’ categories, there will be cross-categories as follows: Mythology, Element/Symbolism, Places, Magic and Art

The categories

Fabulous beasts, legendary creatures and mythology deities

• Creatures and monsters from mythology and folklore.

• Fairy is a subcategory of creatures mainly drawn from the scoto-celtic culture or humanoid races that may exist on our plan but hidden or extinct (subterraneans, ... ).

• Animen, humans morphing into animals and monstrous totemic animals.

Spirits

• Ghosts, spirits from deceased, spectral entities, paranormal infection and other hauntings.

• Demons that are supposed to be summoned on Earth as well as (guardian) angels from the world mythologies and religions.

Crypto creatures

• Animal species that are supposed to exist but remain elusive.

• Dinosaurs.

• Monstrous animals.

Aliens

Extraterrestrial humanoid races that may exist but remain elusive.

Classic monsters

• Archetypal popular monsters: vampire, werewolf, zombie, mummy, ....

• Man-created monsters immortalized by litterature or cinema : Godzilla, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula, ....

These categories will be visible later

Artificial creatures

• Man-made monsters of mechanical or alchemical origins. Related to magic, witchcraft, art and sciences.

• Robots and mechanoids

• Genetically-engineered monsters

Monsters from modern mythologies

All that do not fit in the other categories: Star Wars, Dungeons and dragons, Magic, Harry Potter, .....

It is also a good means to correct some big mistakes carried by those authors/firms about the true monsters archetypes !

Human monsters

Abnormal and abmoral human beings

• Freaks, mutants.

• People having ESP powers.

• Serial killers.

• Witches

Planning

not all the section will be opened from the beginning, we shall concentrate our work on the following categories :

Mythology and legends, spirits because it is the base of everything else.