Forum:Term to describe "regular" Sims

So, once upon a time, it was (apparently) decided that on the wiki, we wouldn't use the term 'human' to refer to "normal" Sims (i.e. Sims that are not an "occult" or other life state). I can't say exactly what the motivation for this was since I'm not sure where, if anywhere, a discussion of this exists.

I noticed today, however, that on Sim and the Simbio templates, that normal Sims are listed on the template as 'human.' I looked through the template code and it looks like it was all changed by Random Ranaun in December. He hasn't edited the wiki yet this year, and I don't really know what prompted him to change it in the first place. In this case, I'd rather not override what he did without figuring out whether or not we should.

So, how do we feel about this? When referring to non-"special" Sims, should we call them 'human' or 'Sim' or 'normal' or something else? --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 05:31, February 14, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
I think that 'Human' does not describe Sims, they are just Sims. So I go with Sim life state, not Human Joey.eyeball (talk) 05:34, February 14, 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a note, RandomRanaun was on the IRC today - he may not be editing the wiki actively, but he's still here. I'd also rather have where we just refer to them as 'Sims'. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 05:37, February 14, 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't really bother me, either way. As long as we stick to the category for "Normal" Sims. --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 05:50, February 14, 2014 (UTC)

I think we should change it back to 'Sims' as that is what regular Sims are called, just 'Sims'. However, I could see what made RR change the term we currently use, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to call Sims 'Humans'. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 19:44, February 15, 2014 (UTC)

In my Sims games, "regular Sims" are not human. But "Sim" is a generic term, used to denote any electronic living thing. Zombies, vampires, fairies, dogs, cats, werewolves, witches, warlocks, etc. are all technically Sims. So it is a very confusing topic. We could just say "Normal", but that looks a bit weird. K6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 21:37, February 17, 2014 (UTC)

We have an article about Sim which describes a Sim as a "virtually simulated person." The practice seems to be to use the term 'Sim' as a sort of synonym for 'human' (though obviously, a simulated one) and, by extension, to not use the term 'Sim' to apply to zombies, vampires, etc. I think that's re-enforced by the fact that we do already have separate names for those life states; we don't call them 'Zombie Sims' or 'Vampire Sims' or 'Cat Sims'... we just call them by their life state. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 22:12, February 17, 2014 (UTC)

I think the first (only?) instance where the game uses "human" in terms of life state is in Supernatural, where the EP gives the ability to choose a life state in CAS. The normal state is called "human", but that's it. I think that's where RR got the idea from. I'd prefer if we call the non-occult Sims just "Sims", while if we need to name the state (as in  parameter in Sim), we should call it "Normal", not "Human".  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  03:28, February 18, 2014 (UTC)

I think we should stick to "Normal". That's what it's always been... it would bother me if it was anything otherwise. But what's been ticking me off recently, don't know if anyone else's noticed this, but since around the release of Supernatural, a lot of non-occult state Sims just have the "stage" parameter left blank. That really gets on my nerves, but it looks like most of it's been fixed. 19:54, February 18, 2014 (UTC)

I think that using "Sim" as a general term would be better than using "Human", as Sims technically aren't humans, even though they look like them! ~ Waikikamukow  ( Anyone wanna chat? ) 03:38, February 22, 2014 (UTC)

I'd stick with Humans. I realize they aren't that, but they're about as close as it is in game. "Normal" does sound weird, and Sims is used for all live states. And besides, I would go with whatever CAS says it is, which is, in this case, Humans. The Raven   -  Nevermore 23:22, February 22, 2014 (UTC)Slade81

I think we shoud call them "Human". Every life state is a sim when you think about it. Normal is just plain boring. The Sims is a simulated version of real life. You are human, You are not a ghost, zombie or a vampire (hopefully). Vampires, are NOT human at all. They are still sims, (in a way) They act different from normal sims. You don't have fangs. You don't come around biting people. Do you? Humans don't, in turn making normal sims, Human. StartUp talk 06:26, March 11, 2014 (UTC)

We should call'em "human", since other life states are also Sims. And "Normal" sounds like we're having no better ideas. Seriously, it sounds horrible!

Hope I didn't erase anything from anyone, but it's hard to tell from the phone.

Baluar (talk) 23:40, March 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * The thing is, as I said above, only Sims are Sims according to the wiki's own definition of the term. 'Sim' is the term we use to refer to these beings in any other context on the wiki - we don't call them "normal" and we rarely if ever call them "human". And while, yes, other living creatures are sims (in that they're simulated entities), if you referred to an in-game entity using the term 'Sim' the fair assumption made is that you're talking about a humanoid non-occult living life state... simply put, a Sim. The only time you'd ever refer to another life state with the term 'Sim' is if you qualify it first- zombie Sim, vampire Sim, etc. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 00:14, March 27, 2014 (UTC)

Update
So, Random Ranaun told me that he changed the parameter because The Sims 3: Supernatural uses 'human' as the non-occult term in CAS. That doesn't change the fact that prior to this change, we had used the term 'Sim' and at one point there was an effort underway to deliberately change references to 'human' into references to 'Sim.' Digging a little bit more, I found this forum thread from about five years ago, wherein the majority of people specified a preference for using the term 'human'. Despite that, it still somehow became customary to use 'Sim' instead, and I'm not entirely sure why. The discussion going on in this thread shows a pretty even split between terms, and whatever gets decided here would ultimately override any earlier decisions anyways, but it's still very curious. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:07, April 17, 2014 (UTC)
 * There is also this talk page, from when 'Human' and 'Sim' had separate pages. This might give a little insight into what happened. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:13, April 17, 2014 (UTC)


 * Reading back the thread again, I felt a bit confused as the problem here is rather ambiguous. I just want to conclude the problem to make it simple. We call "Sim" to refer to the figure; any life states like vampires and zombies are "Sims", but cats are not "Sims" as they're animals. Now the problem is we have to decide whether the default life state should be called "normal" or "human". The default life state can't be "Sims" because the term has a wider meaning.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  16:34, April 17, 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer to call the default life state "normal". Animals have life states too. All pets can be ghosts, horses can be unicorns, but what's for the default state? If we call regular Sims "normal", we should call the pets "normal" too. If we call Sims "human", it means we should call cats "cat", dogs "dog", and horses "horse" individually, which I think is impractical. We should use either option, not both, as it would be inconsistent.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  16:41, April 17, 2014 (UTC)
 * The question is, if we say that 'Sim' applies to all non-animal simulated things, then what do we do about Sim? Do we re-write it so that it talks about all Sims, "human" and non-"human" equally? Do we create a separate article specifically for non-occult Humans? These are things we'll have to decide if we go down the path you're suggesting, which is one of the reasons why I'm suggesting that we restrict the usage of 'Sim' to specifically and exclusively refer only to "human" non-occult characters. If we do this, there are no fundamental changes to the wiki's current definitions or articles. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:45, April 17, 2014 (UTC)


 * Not sure if I should add this to this part, but... I've always thought as all nonoccult sims as "Sims" instead of humans. I have only used 'human' when filling in a Sim bio. I don't really see sims as humans. Since they live in their own worlds, and the game title specifically calls them Sims. Maybe it could be down to player's choice outside of canon game content, such as fanons and fanfics, etc. WayfinderOwl (talk) 17:01, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

Three months later
No consensus has been reached. When referring to non-"special" Sims, should we call them 'human' or 'Sim' or 'normal' or something else? Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 04:53, June 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * I hate to say it, but this might be one of those rare instances where a formal vote is necessary to solve this issue. We can go around in circles forever and never really get a clear consensus. -  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 05:00, June 26, 2014 (UTC)

I must say, I agree. --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 05:28, June 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * I think since there's hardly anything to say, voting could be a better solution.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  13:53, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

Voting
It looks like we're going to hold a vote to decide this question. Please vote on the following question: What term should The Sims Wiki use in Sim-based infoboxes to refer to living human-like non-occult simulated people? Please choose from the following options: In accordance with the wiki's voting procedures, this vote will last for two weeks. Time remaining:
 * Human
 * Normal
 * Sim
 * "Other" (please specify within a comment)