Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 7

message: At this time, among this group we have clear consensus on: do re-populate :Category:Film actors and :Category:Film directors, do not re-populate up the heirarchy tree above :Category:Actors.  There is less clear agreement on "Actors" itself, and the NATIONALITY actors categories.  We also have the "cousin" categories of the Film categories - Stage and Television.
I've been thinking this over the past couple days - I think that those who are interested in helping with the repopulation effort for the "MEDIUM(Film,Stage,Television) Actors" (or directors) categories should go ahead and begin, maybe focusing on the film category first (one has to choose somewhere to start), but at the same time, as we "touch" any articles to add in MEDIUM Actors category tags, why not make sure, at the same time, as Nareek suggested, that the NATIONALITY Actors and Actors category tags are there also?
Of the group that has given consensus on populating categories farther up the heirarchy tree than the NATIONALITY MEDIUM Actors categories, no one showed significant opposition to populating NATIONALITY Actors or Actors, and our "populate to the level of notability" criterion could be applied either at the MEDIUM Actors or Actors level, and, interest has been expressed in having :Category:Actors populated for browsing.
As we begin this work, it would be good to incorporate Samuel's new "Allincluded" template on the appropriate category pages.
I am planning to proceed as I have described above, if there is strong objection, or a different consensus is reached, my changes can always be undone.
Nareek, I am adding this latest to the :Category talk:Actors as well; wasn't sure where it would be most likely to be observed, here or there?
NickelShoe, you were part of this discussion at the beginning; I know that the repopulation of the higher level categories is a new direction from the way we were going before, hopefully, after the discussions above, and the checking of whether categories can be too large (from a technical standpoint), this conclusion is something that you can live with?  Your opinion is valued; you do a lot of work improving the quality of Wikipedia, and you had already put in a lot of effort in organizing the Actors categories according to the generally held application of WP:MOS prior to this discussion.
Feedback from all is appreciated, as always. Thanks,Lini 13:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I think it makes the process of categorizing articles more complicated (rather than simply using the most specific category, one has to figure out when to also use general categories), but I trust that if others say it's helpful to be able to browse categories I find unwieldy that they're telling the truth.  So I wouldn't stand in the way.  Hopefully some day we'll have cross-referencing cats. NickelShoe 19:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm against any change. An actor's nationality is important. It effects the type of parts they get etc. We don't need a huge category, some of them are more than big enough as it is. Golfcam 22:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I very strongly object to a swing to dogmatism in the opposite direction. Extrapolating from a special case such as film actors (not that I agree with any change even there) is a wrong headed proceeding. There will be many cases where this sort of multiple categorisation is very messy because it will push many of the subcategories off of the first page. It will also generate immense category clutter on some article pages. And in any case, how do you decide which categories should have topic articles? There are many which don't exist, but could or should. This proposal is for a scattergun approach, when we should concentrate on flexibility and accuracy based on what is best in each area. CalJW 05:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proceeding from here

message: I just noticed a new trend: articles for specific dates, such as January 18, 2005. Not sure I like it (note the related AFD discussion), but lots of them now exist. For the purpose of this talk page, I'm wondering how they should be categorized. The one I linked to above was placed in :Category:2005, definitely not a good choice (I removed it). Most of the others seem to be uncategorized at the moment. So how should they be categorized? - dcljr (talk) 22:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The solution to this problem would be the noinclude tag. dcljr (talk) 23:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for specific dates 

message: A question concerning the purpose of categories:  Is the primary purpose of categories to:
* Aid the reader in finding material which may be of interest, or relevant to a particular topic?
* Producing a taxonomy; wherein being included in one or more categories is an indication--nay, a declaration by the Wikipedia community--that the subject of an article is an instance of the categories it is included in.
I seem to suspect the latter; and the article advises that "Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.".  
However, one side-effect of that rule is category fights, wherein two (or more editors) will have a dispute over whether a topic belongs in a particular category, or not--or constantly move the article back and forth between two different categories.  Some categories are seen as marks of prestige (such as :Category:physics, whereas others are seen as badges of dishonor, like :Category:Pseudoscience); I can think of several articles in the realm of physics which have been the subject of such disputes.
Perhaps a wider view of categories may be more appropriate--as in "this is a list of possibly relevant subjects; some of which may be of disputed relevance?"  That might nip some of the edit wars in the bud. --EngineerScotty 23:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to say that the first is definitely the purpose, however readers will still interpret it as a declaration, no matter what we say they should do.  Therefore we can only be so loose with category usage.  If a category is inherently a value judgment, it should be deleted or renamed.  NickelShoe 02:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Categories should be a Wikipedia-based system, not "factualness"-based.  We would either have tons of uncategorized articles for valid but controversial ideas, ... or each category would have dozens of parallel categories for "some people believe" or "usually mentioned in association with" relationships.  The real world is too complex to describe in terms of yes and no, so you shouldn't expect to learn about a subject by just reading categories.  Want to know why an article is listed in a category?  Simply click on it and read the article! GUllman 20:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category purpose question 

message: Why can't you see the Categories section of a page when editing a page?  Cigarette 15:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, somebody had to tell me too...they're all the way at the bottom of the page, under the edit box.  Interwikis are over at the side.  You mean when previewing, right? NickelShoe 17:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean you can't see the Category: references in the edit box, note that categories are sometimes "hidden" inside of . Maybe that's the problem. - dcljr (talk) 19:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Can't see categories when editing

message: I have created :Template:Allincluded for use in categories that include the articles that are in its subdirectories.  Here is an example of its use from :Category:Bridges in New York.   produces the following comment:
I think this template (or some similar comment should be used when subcategorization does not remove articles from topic categories as discussed above. -- Samuel Wantman 08:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this new template should work very nicely for that purpose.  Thanks! ----Lini 12:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template for categories that include the articles in its subdirectories 

message: I linked an article about a person to a category, and when the name appeared on the category page it was in the wrong place. It ended up alphabetized under her first name, instead of the last name like everyone else in the category. How did this happen? How can I fix it?
(The article was Paola Giangiacomo and the category was :Category:Television journalists.)   — Michael J 17:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Categorisation_FAQ#How_do_I_sort_the_article_differently_on_the_category_page.3F   Cacophony 17:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the info, and thanks for fixing the link! — Michael J 00:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help -- didn't alphabetize correctly 

message: I've altered the guideline on the accompanying page to reflect the fact that there's at least a difference of opinion on the subject of populating the category trees.  (See above.)  There seemed to be a pro-population consensus in the discussion we just had, but perhaps it's too soon to change the guideline completely?  In case I acted hastily, I left the old language up, commented out, to make it easy to restore. Nareek 23:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the revised (inclusionist) way should be the guideline.  Nobody has given me a good reason why categorization should be limited to the smallest denominator.  Why put artificial limits on categorization?  It only hurts the end users by creating (sometimes) unnatural divisions.  Who cares if there is a few very similar category links at the bottom of the page?  Tolerating "redundant" categorization is such a ultra-minor tradeoff to having meaningful (i.e. complete) categories.  Cacophony 00:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with altering the guideline, but I think there is more to it.  I don't think that categories should be populated ALL the way up a hierarchy.  This would make it MORE difficult to navigate some categories.  For example, :Category:Bridges has articles about the different types of bridges along with other articles related to bridges, and all the subcategories have the artcles about specific individual bridges.  This is a useful division of the articles.  If :Category:Bridges also had the hundreds of artilces about individual bridges, it would be very difficult to navigate the other articles about bridges.  The discussion above talks about populating categories that were subdivided arbitrarily (like by nationality) and only up to the level of a topic article.  I don't think we should condone anything more than that. -- Samuel Wantman 11:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I've said above I endorse a flexible approach, but I am very strongly opposed to multi-level categorisation as a standard policy. The exceptions should remain exceptions. I find the idea that categorisation by nationality is "arbitary" somewhat offensive. I value nationalities and they still play a major role in the world, even if some people like to thing it is cooler to treat them as anachromisms. They are not anachronisms. CalJW 05:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing guideline 

message: There's a dispute over at WikiProject Cricket over the appropriate categorization of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and UAE cricketers. Details here. Third party opinions welcome. --Muchness 14:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Third party opinions requested

message: * I've been noticing that the AWB bot is alphabetizing the category links within articles. Is there a guideline for the order in which categories should be linked on a page? When I categorize I usually put the most obvious or most telling ones first (probably because that's the order in which I think of them). Is there any benefit to having a preferred way to do this, and if so, should it be discussed in the relevent help topics/style manuals, etc, where I've been looking in vain? --Dystopos 23:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you.  Alphabetical isn't necessarily best.  Furthermore, even when it is alphabetical, there's no particular reason to have numbers in front of letters rather than behind them--stick the :Category:1873 births stuff at the end.  Gene Nygaard 03:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

text: For biographical entries, it seems natural to put the birth and death dates first.  I think it would be a good idea to make that standard at least.  Second best would be to always put them at the end, birth first, death second, just make it consistent.  --JeffW 05:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I too have been noticing the increasing number of alphabetized categories, but was not aware (until now) that this was due to a bot.  AWB is not a bot, if someone is using AWB to do these changes, we should invite them here to discuss it.  I am not aware of any policy or guideline that calls for alpabetizing categories.  It seems premature and a little rude to start a bot to do this.  I'm hoping that the person or bot can stop making the changes and the discussion could take place here.  There is good reason to organize category listings in ways that may or may not be alphabetical.  For example, people with an eponymous category often had that category at the beginning or the end of the heap so that it could be found easily.  In the bridge articles, the type of bridge was often put at the top of the heap.  It seems that there are primary categories, and this often gets the lead or end spots.  I've also seen similar types of categories clumped together in ways that a bot would never understand. -- Samuel Wantman 07:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the options in the AWB is to sort categories alphabetically. I've seen it used for that in the past, though I can't remember any examples right now. - EurekaLott 19:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

text: So has the person or persons responsible for alphabetizing categories stopped doing so?  Should we ask the maintainer of AWB to remove the "sort categories alphabetically" option?  --JeffW 16:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Since Wikipedia is a self-organizing chaotic system, it would make sense to me if many policy issues were dealt with by smaller groups of people.  I think the Wikiproject is a good model of how to do this.  People interested and knowledgeable in a subject area can get together to decide the best way to handle issues for their subject matter.  Likewise, people concerned with categorization can meet here to discuss the overall rules for categories.  I'd  prefer to have the minimum amount of rules here and let each subject area work out the details.  Perhaps the minimum is roughly alphabetical, with exceptions possible for the first and last category listed.  I'd leave the first position for a main subject grouping and the last for an eponymous category. -- Samuel Wantman 07:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I don't think it needs any hard rules. I prefer common sense to consistency. I think if it is taken up, it should be considered a style guideline (i.e. requiring an eye to style rather than any specific knowledge) and never a hard rule. --Dystopos 15:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think alphabetizing the categories is generally unhelpful--given that most users probably don't have a list of categories in their head that they're looking for, it's essentially randomizing. (I can see how alphabetical order might be useful for editors in some cases, but the articles should primarily be organized for the benefit of readers.) My inclination is to make the rule as broad as possible--grouping similar categories together, and going as far as possible from more general to more specific. Nareek 16:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that alphabetizing is not the way to go.  I have always categorized big picture first and most specific category last because that seemed like the normal convention.  Alphabetical order is basically random.  Cacophony 18:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, alphabetizing categories is bad.  Do we have enough agreement to put that in the guidelines?  --JeffW 18:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Recommended order for Category links

message: It appears the section on this page, Cycles should usually be avoided is both controversial and ambiguous.  While it states they should be avoided, it gives no justification.  In addition, the discussion above about Education demonstrates at least one case of a self-referencing system that might be “acceptable,” at least to many editors. Perhaps the more active editors in this area that have weighed in with differing views on the subject, such as SamuelWantman and JonHarder can work together to clarify what types of cycles should be avoided under what circumstances and when it might be okay to use cycles.  Using more examples in the "okay" – "not okay" situations would be very helpful as well. Thanks. Rfrisbietalk 18:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I am honored to be nominated for a task, you seem to be more concerned about this issue than either I and JoHarder are.  There is no reason why you could not come up with some wording and add it to the page.  Perhaps a better way to deal with this issue is to take the discussion above and edit into a short sub-page that can be linked to the Cycles should usually be avoided section.  You could call it Wikipedia:Categorization/Cycles.  A sub-page might be the way to go because in the two years I've been watching the conversations here, this has rarely come up.  There was a good deal of discussion about the categorization of John Lennon, which you could also reference as an example. -- Samuel Wantman 08:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I haven't heard from him since you made the change to the category pages, but I got the impression JonHarder thought it was important, at least enough to remove the cycles in the first place. ;-)  If nobody else is all that interested in it, I might try something in a little while. I wasn't the one who claimed there was a problem with cycles in the first place, so I still would like to see a consensus from both perspectives in the revision. Rfrisbietalk 02:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added something. I'm not going to add a subpage, at least for now.  I also didn't add the John Lennon example because it looked to me more like the George W. Bush example used for "THE TOPIC ARTICLE RULE" at Reasons for duplication. Rfrisbietalk 17:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarifying the section, "Cycles should usually be avoided" 

message: I've started a discussion about some reforms for the Categories for Deletion page (WP:CFD).  Please take a look here. Thanks.  -- Samuel Wantman 10:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CfD reform -- Criteria for deletion based on precedent 

message: Not sure if this is the best place to ask – please redirect me if necessary – but would anyone else prefer the "middle dot" rather than the "vertical line" as the divider between category names in the list at the bottom of a page, i.e.:
Categories: This category · That category · Another category · etc.
rather than
Categories: This category | That category | Another category | etc...?
When glancing, I find it slightly easier to distinguish the categories listed using the dot rather than the line. Thanks for your thoughts, David Kernow 05:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Divider between categories in category listing at bottom of a page 

message: I know we have examples of "related categories" being created manually, such as WTC-9/11, but is there any serious thought to making them an automated feature?  That sure would make it a lot easier to create meaningful broader/narrower term hiercharies and avoid those pesky loops! >;-o Rfrisbietalk 03:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Automation is in, as part of the MediaWiki software, or, via by bot, etc?  I'm not sure I immediately see how this might be done.  Alai 13:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't very clear, sorry.  Say I type in "Relatedcategory:Foo" on a category page.  Then that shows up in its own section at the top of the page, just under the subcategories section.  That way, "See also" comments can be avoided, subcategories are more likely to be true subsets, while related categories can be overlapping sets.  Gyrations around loops should be much simpler too. Rfrisbietalk 20:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This suggestion has been floating around for a while.  I think I made a similar suggestion about a year ago on this page.  I was thinking of using a related category classsification to handle the situation when one hierarcy of categories is a subset of another hierarchy, such as :Category:Bridges in the United States and :Category:Toll bridges in the United States.  But after more than a year of thinking about this issue, I wonder if having a section of related categories is any better than what we are doing now.  I wonder if it would be any clearer and easily understood.  Having a comment that says "See also" seems to be a clear way of saying "This doesn't belong in this category but you might be looking for it here".  Trying to create "true subsets" might be a path that creates more editing conflicts.  Part of the beauty of the categorization scheme is that it is not a rigid taxonomy. -- Samuel Wantman 22:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree suggesting "related categories" isn't a new idea.  They're a staple of any good taxonomy.  I also agree the "See also" kludge is conceptually the same.  And I agree a network is more useful than a hierarchy.  On the other hand, a "manual" approach loses any meaningful capability for systematic database management of these category relationships.  I fully expect that the easier they are to create and view in a consistent way, the more they will be used.  In my opinion, that's the tipper for doing it through a related categories code. Rfrisbietalk 22:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Related categories"? 

message: I've noticed that it has become common practice to sort the main article of a category under * so it will appear at the top of the page list.  How does this interact with the catmore template?  Is one preferred or should both be used?
Also, in many cases it's appropriate to sort a list (especially when the all the pages in a category are instances) to the top of the page list.  If there is already a main article for that category, my gut says lists should appear after the main article.  Should they be sorted as ** so they appear after the main article but in the same block?  Or perhaps + should be used so they appear as a second block.  Or should the main article be sorted with a space instead of * and the * used for the the lists?  --JeffW 19:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is currently being done several different ways.  The guidelines suggest the space for main articles, but are not clear about the star.  I think that eponymous articles should be sorted with a space and all others should use the *. --Samuel Wantman 22:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've noticed this very "diversity" in the sorting of sub-categories of stub types, which possibly most often use a * as a prefix, sometimes a space, and sometimes no key prefix at all (or indeed, no key).  In such cases I think it makes sense to use something, as often these are largeish categories with multiple "pages", and it's useful if all the subcats appear on the first one.  Some standardisation would probably be nice (said more in faint hope than strong expectation).  Alai 01:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top-Sorting 

message: I recently noticed awkwardness in the wording of the automatically-generated text that precedes a category’s subcategories.  The awkward “There are 62 subcategories to this category.” would be better worded as “There are 62 subcategories within this category.” —optikos 00:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Subcategory intro wording

message: There are many occasions when having articles and categories with the same name is not a good idea.  Eponymous categories should be avoided unless there are more than a dozen or so related articles. If all the articles are cross-linked to the main article in a prominent way there is no need for the category. Another very important consideration is the effect of having eponymous categories for all the siblings of the article.  For example, curently RENT  has the eponymous :Category:RENT (nominated by me at WP:CFD).  If every broadway play had an eponymous category it would fill up :Category:Broadway musicals with duplicate entries in the subcategory and article sections with little or no added utility.  If :Category:Celebrities appearing in South Park (also at CFD) exists, then every TV series could have similar eponymous categories.  This would lead to dozens of categories of little value being added to the articles of hundreds of celebrities.  I think the standard should be: "Eponymous categories should be avoided unless there are more than a dozen links in the See also section." I'd like to add a guideline about this.  Any comments? -- Samuel Wantman 08:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Categories are simply sets of related articles and subcategories belonging to one or more parent categories. They have a short intro ideally explaining what's in and what's out, and that's almost all you can say about categories. Make sure that they make sense for a long period, moving all elements of a set to a renamed category could be a PITA. Unless the category is mainly filled by un-subst'ed template(s), then modifying the template(s) would do the trick. Of course some categories are bogus, like some articles, templates, lists, guidelines, or redirects. In other words, I didn't get your point. But I dissolved a bogus category with only two articles as child of another category with only two articles some hours ago, if that's related to your comment (?). -- Omniplex 10:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I do admit it seems a little odd when the same name appears in the subcategory and the article section of the category page.  Couldn't we deal with that problem with just making it a policy that when a category and an article share the same or nearly the same name that they shouldn't both be listed in the same categories?  --JeffW 06:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree in principle, but I'm not sure about having a rule.  The guidelines state that each should be categorized by their own merits in categories with members who are siblings.  Sometimes there are cases where the eponymous category differs slightly from the article (usually with the letter "s") such as Suspension bridge and :Category:Suspension bridges.  In these cases it makes sense to have both categorized in :Category:Bridges.  If you look at the categories found in :Category:Category by person, most of these belong in very few categories, while the eponymous article belongs in many categories.  This leads to having a structure that would bring the user to an article from many categories, and then from the category, they would procede to the eponymous category.  This seems like a natural flow that I think would be just fine in most situations.  I can imagine that there are eponymous categories that might be suitable for inclusion as a subcategory in other categories, so I don't think this should be a hard and fast rule.  Common practice nowadays is to put the eponymous categories into way too many other categories.  I think this is a result of the old system of JUST putting the article in the eponymous category and no where else. --Samuel Wantman 10:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've been seeing a situation while working with the Lists category that bears on this.  When someone decides to break a list out of an article into their own article the list often doesn't doesn't really fit into any of the parent categories.  Now, it won't be a category orphan because it will fit into one of the Lists subcategories, but it seems to me that every list ought to fit into the non-list category bush somehow.  So it would be nice to create an eponymous category so the list has a category to belong to, but I think most people would object to a category with only two items.  I don't have any reasonable solutions, but its something to think about.  --JeffW 06:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you give an example?  Could the list be in one of the parent categories of the (unwanted) eponymous category?  Is there a possible new subcategory that could contain this list and similar lists related to the siblings of the topic? -- Samuel Wantman 10:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about Timeline of Northfield history.  It wouldn't really fit in :Category:Cities in Minnesota and it doesn't really belong in :Category:History by city where it is now.  --JeffW 14:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Or take List of teams sponsored by Adidas.  It would fit great in an Adidas category if there was one.  But there isn't and it doesn't really fit in any of the categories that Adidas is in, so I just put it in the Sports category and a Lists category.  --JeffW 13:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eponymous categories 

message: Should WP:category redirect here? Afonso Silva 20:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:CAT goes to Wikipedia:Category with links to Wikipedia:Categorization. Often I found the most reliable technical info on Meta. -- Omniplex 02:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, sorry, I forgot to capitalize the "C", so, I thought there was no redirect, that seemed really strange, so, I asked this. Just forget it. And thanks for the meta tip! Afonso Silva 21:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirect

message: It's been a while (September 2005) since I worked on Categories, and I was wondering how much things have moved on since then? Is there any summary available of the discussion that hasn't made it onto the guidelines page yet? I also had some questions that I was hoping to get some advice on:
(1) I recently worked on a page that seems to touch a lot of different areas: Ptolemy (name) - it originated from a disambiguation page (Ptolemy (disambiguation), and I wasn't sure whether to leave the disambiguation tags and categories in place. Eventually I did remove them and added some different categories (Etymology, Names, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Cultural history) - can anyone think of any more, or more suitable, categories?
(2) Would I be right to say that the categorisation scheme is flexible enough to allow slightly different methods to apply in different subject areas? I wrote something here about categorisation in one particular subject area, and was wondering if it sounds OK in terms of the overall categorisation guidelines?
At the same location, I've been considering using the Category Scan tool to get an overall picture of the categorisation scheme for a particular, fairly small, area. Is there an easy way to use the Category Scan tool, or something similar, to generate a "tree-like" snapshot as something that could be posted on a Wikipedia page, either as a text-based "tree", or a screenshot? Carcharoth 19:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advice on Categorization? 

message: I've been reading through this talk page, and I came across the following comment: "I noticed that :Category:Geography of Greenland is at the base of a vertical chain of inclusion 37 (!) deep, featuring among others, it being classified (sorry) under Cat:Philosophical concepts, Cat:Apes, and Cat:Theoretical physics."
I thought I'd follow this up and see why this was the case, trying to find the routes from those three categories down to the Geography of Greenland category. I swiftly gave up, or assumed that the connections had been severed, but I did come across one thing I found strange.
Why is :Category:Geography a subcategory of :Category:Earth sciences? This seems to me to be a clear case where some of the articles and subcategories of Geography belong in Earth Sciences, but some don't (eg. Political Geography). Lumping all the Geography cat/articles under Earth Sciences has created false links on the "tree". This is a clear example of bad (or lazy) categorisation in a high level category.
Maybe a guideline needs to be written (unless it already exists) that when considering what parent categories to put a category in, consider whether the contents of the category could also be split among different parent categories, either with or without creating new categories to make the categorisation easier.
In the Geography example, Geography would be removed from the Earth sciences category and all the 'science' geography items (for example) would be placed in the Earth Sciences category as well as the Geography category, but the 'non-science' geography items would be placed in the Geography but not the Earth Sciences category. Thus the Geography category, while not itself being a member of the Earth Sciences category, would have children that were members.
Overlapping sets and links skipping levels on the "tree", or reaching over to a distant part of the "tree". This is how I see the Categorisation system, and some of the subtleties of categorisation. But I thought it best to see if I'm getting this right before I start being bold and changing things where I think the categorisation is not quite right. I'm also still looking for a way to show other people small areas of the expanded category "tree". I'm only aware of the Category Scan tool, but how do I get the output from that into a form that is easily posted on a talk page? Carcharoth 01:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some more thoughts on Categorization 

message: Something I've realised recently is that it is probably useful to differentiate between categorizing articles and categorizing categories. The guidelines here almost exclusively talk about how to categorize articles. I feel that something about when and how to categorise a category would be a useful addition to the guidelines.
I see "categorizing categories" as creating links on the category "tree", making links between different areas, as opposed to populating the tree (adding articles to categories). Before doing this, it is important to realise the nature of the category and where you are in the category tree: ie. how many levels downwards does the category reach that you are trying to "graft" onto the "tree", and how many articles are present inside the category and its subcategories? If the number is small and in a tightly focused area, then you may have a pretty good idea of suitable categories that should be linked to. On the other hand, if the subject is broad (like the Geography category) then a simnple graft is not the right way to proceed (you have to surgically tweak out branches from the geography category and graft them onto separate areas of the "tree").
Another way to look at categorising categories might be the following. When considering what categories to put an article in, consider whether, instead of putting the article in a candidate category, you can link the article to that category by putting one of the article's categories (parent or other ancestor) in the candidate category. The link, and browsing route, is thus created without having an excessive amount of similar categories for that article. In other words: categorize an article on where you want it "listed" with similar articles, but rely on the process of 'categorising the categories' to create the "browsing links" that allow people to browse the whole structure to find a particular category.
Would something like this be useful for the guidelines? Carcharoth 02:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differentiate between categorizing articles and categorizing categories 

message: I want to create a category for sorting people as per their language knowledge. So, L.L. Zamenhof should be listed in Category:Esperanto speakers, Category:Polish speakers, etc. or Kimi Räikkönen in Category:Finnish speakers, Category:English speakers. I think this will be useful, but I want to have consensus to start this work. Best, Mxcatania 14:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say if they are categorised by nationality, and that is the same as the language, then that is enough (you could make "English people" a subcategory of English speakers if you wanted). If they know a language other than the one associated with their nationality, then they can be usefully added to such categories. One more thing, I would only do this if there is a reliable reference, in the article about the person, saying that the person speaks this other language. The important thing here is to decide whether the category will be _useful_. Does it duplicate too much of what the nationality categories do? Ditto for ethnicity categories (though I think there's been a lot of debate about that already). Language is not among the current reccommended criteria given here. Should it be? Carcharoth 16:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: As for suitable Category names, I'd suggest :Category:People by language (if you want to be comprehensive), or :Category:People with a second language (and obviously third and more languages). I thought there was a :Category:Multilingual people category in the People category tree, but I can't find it. Maybe the link I've just written will be blue? Carcharoth 16:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Carcharoth, Thanks for your feedback with this issue. I'd like to know whether I need a consensus to do this, or not. I think :Category:People by language would be the best name. The Category:Polyglots would fit as a subcategory of that one I'm proposing. Again, thank you for your words. Best, Mxcatania 17:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Based on the above, I'd say create :Category:People by language, move :Category:Polyglots to be a subcategory of that category, and consider creating :Category:Multilingual people as another subcategory. One problem is that many people outside the English-speaking countries will have English as a second language. So this might all end up a bit unwieldy. I think subdividing by language would be unhelpful, though if you went that way, it would be :Category:Speakers of English as a second language or something similar. Carcharoth 16:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think that people navigating from 'People' -> 'People by language' should encounter a note telling them that the category only covers people noteworthy for their uses of languages (as in the two categories mentioned above: Polyglots and Esperantists). Other subcategories can be added to this 'People by language' category as needed and as appropriate. The note should also say, up front, that people whose mother tongue is the same as their nationality are listed under their nationality. That should make the task manageable. Carcharoth 17:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think what Carcharoth said was perfect. I agree with that and, on the other hand, yes, it's challenging to tag people as per each language they know, but we can do it! It would be nice, I mean. Mxcatania 17:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to know what subcategories besides the two mentioned that you are planning to add.  I don't think that being bilingual is notable enough, for example.  --JeffW 18:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: -- Samuel Wantman 21:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: That's not what i meant.  I meant if a category like actors, directors, writers, singers, etc... gets subcategorized. -- Samuel Wantman 06:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Category:People
 Category:People by language
   :Category:Catalan people (1)
   Category:English speakers
    :Category:American people
    :Category:Australian people
    :Category:British people
    Shakira (3)
   :Category:Esperantists
   :Category:Idists
   Category:Spanish speakers
    :Category:Argentine people
    :Category:Chilean people
    :Category:Colombian people
      Shakira (2)
    :Category:Spanish people
    :Category:Venezuelan people
   :Category:Welsh people
    ...
(1) They are part of :Category:Spanish people, then they both speak Spanish and Catalan as per this categorization.
(2) We assume people do speak the native language of the region he are from. Shakira is supposed to speak Spanish because Colombia is a Spanish-speaker country.
(3) When he/she speaks other language (and it's worthy mentioning), then we include it in other language category. In this case, Shakira being Colombian (Spanish spaker) sings in English, then we include her into English speaker category.
I think this would be the best way. Mxcatania 14:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: This probably won't fly.  The problem is that you end up putting people categorized by nationality into categories by language.  Multi-lingual countries like the US, get put into English, so then all the Spanish speaking Americans are put in a subcategory of English speakers.  This is not how categorization is supposed to work.  To make these categories work, you need to have subcategories that are subsets of the larger categories, not ones in which only a majority are members. Category membership is for articles in which the categorization is an important attribute in the article, which is discussed in the article.  Even if you discount that argument and say that everyone in the US category speaks some english, how do you put the Spanish speaking Americans in the Spanish speakers' category?-- Samuel Wantman 08:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Samuel, you have a point there. But the Spanish speaking Americans - if notable - applies to (2) same as Shakira applies to English speakers. I mean, if someone in the US speaks Spanish and it's worthy mentioning (maybe Christina Aguilera), then you tag him/her as Spanish speaker as an exception. We will do exceptions for cases like this (:Category:Mexican American writers will apply to Spanish speakers being tagged ad hoc and English speakers being American people). Let me know your comments. Best, Mxcatania 13:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd dispense with the nationalities.  It is reasonable to have categorization by language for those categories where language is important and notable.  So instead of adding nationality subcats to Spanish speakers, I'd add subcats like Spanish language writers, Spanish language actors, Spanish language orators, Spanish language singers, Spanish language comedians, etc...'  All these categories make important distinctions about language, nationality does not. -- Samuel Wantman 05:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Totally agree with you, Samuel. Your proposal is better. Do we need some consensus to go on? Or may we begin? Best, Mxcatania 12:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are just adding these categories on top of the existing structure without removing anyone from any of the categories in which they now  reside, no more discussion is necessary.  Typically these categories are created and populated withoug prior discussion.  The extra discussion here means that the new categories are more likely to be found acceptable.  Once created, anyone may list these categories for deletion or renaming at WP:CFD.  Make certain you follow the current guidelines for categorizing people, and everything is correctly capitalized.  I'm wondering about alternatives to "Fooish language fooers", like "Fooish speaking fooers" and "Fooers who foo in Fooish".  I don't think these are better, but perhaps someone else has an idea of a better format.  This can also be easily changed later at WP:CFD so there really is no impediment to beginning.  -- Samuel Wantman 06:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  People by language 

message: I've been thinking about Samuel Wantman's proposal to limit the eponymous categories unless there are at least a dozen related articles.  But what if we went the other way?
What if every article in the main space was also a category?  Then if I had an article that is related to Adidas, I could just add Adidas as its category without worrying about creating the category.  I have two ideas for the user interface.  In the first there would be buttons at the top and bottom of every article to take you to the category side of the article.  The second would be to put the panes for subcategories and included pages at the bottom of the page, so that you would have the article text, followed by the categories the article belongs in, followed by the subcategories of the article/category, followed by the articles that have this article as their category.
Now, how to do it technically is a different matter and I'm not familiar with the the technicals of Wikimedia and I realize that the programmers have a big backlog as it is.  But its something to think about.  --JeffW 13:41, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your idea has merit.  Unfortunately, it seems near impossible to make such a big change to Wikipedia.  I can recall similar suggestions to yours in the past.  When portals were beginning to show up I suggested that they be moved into the article space, and the topic articles be moved to Subject (main article).  Like your suggestion above, there was hardly a comment responding.  Wikis don't seem to undergo major revolutions, but rather evolve slowly.  Trying to get them to change radically is very frustrating. -- Samuel Wantman 07:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This suggestion seems to add an unnecessary extra layer to categories.  It is nice to have a few links at the bottom of an article that you can use to find related articles.  I think there is too much of a drive to turn it into a hierarchy.  Cacophony 07:40, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm.  But that is what categorization is.  Is it a waste of time to try to make a hierarchy where an article may be found by following links down from a major category?  Putting a few sideways links doesn't hurt too much but where do you stop?  It seems like what you want are See Also links.  Perhaps these could be made bi-directional so that if I add a link in the See Also section that the system automatically adds the back link?  --JeffW 14:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: At the most simplistic level, this suggestion doesn't seem much different from what "What Links Here" already accomplishes. For more esoteric topics, a category really isn't necessary, and major topics almost all have one or more categories of their own already. -Sean Curtin 04:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Radical Proposal 

message: I've had a number of recent discussions about top-sorting of subcategories with people I've ended up working at cross-purposes with, through no fault of any of us.  Would there be any objection to a) saying something about top-sorting being a good idea, and b) if so (and if not, if it happens to be done anyway) which character to use?  I'll put my 2 eurocents in for "yes", and for "*", respectively, but I'd just appreciate some clarity, one way or another.  Alai 22:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What kind of top sorting?  I've been going by Main articles should be top-sorted with a space and other things like lists should be top-sorted with an asterisk.  Although I haven't been automatically top-sorting lists without looking to see what's been done with that category already.  --JeffW 22:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I say, of subcategories.  Stub (sub-)categories as it turns out, but I assume a more general principle applies.  Alai 23:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Fwiw, I like the idea of using | foo (pipe+space+sub-cat title) to sort the main article for a category to the very top, then using |*foo (pipe+asterisk+sub-cat title) to sort all the other sub-cats to the top. Anyone using the category then doesn't have to guess whether a sub-cat is worded in such a way as to fall under varying letters (e.g. Images of Cthulhu might be under I or C, depending on who sorted it). Her Pegship 20:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top-sorting, again 

message: I have come across several articles that give an overview of an area, and thus touch on many subject areas that it might be possible to categorise by. What is the guideline for this sort of article? Categorise as widely as possible, or try and restrict it? An example is Rationing, which I recently categorised under several other categories that are relevant for the sections of the article. In effect, I am categorising based on the sections. Is this done in general? Are there better ways to do this? How briefly or extensive does a section have to be to make the article deserve/not deserve a category based on that section? Carcharoth 13:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Following on from the above, is there a category for "topic disambiguation" pages? The example I gave of rationing seems to be disambiguating the term between different subject areas. I suppose if articles on the individual sections were ever created or spun off the article, then the relevant categories would go with them, and the only ones left behind, eventually, would be the "topic disambiguation" category, and the "general topic categories" (here, probably administration and economics). Carcharoth 13:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a disambiguation page, it's a multi-stub page.  See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Summary or multi-stub pages.  Multi-stubs do not get the disambiguation notice (and hence, should not get the category either). --TreyHarris 14:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Brilliant. Thanks. Carcharoth 17:41, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: From a category perspective I'd rather see the article broken up into it's component stub pages.  Absent that I think you have to add categories for each stub within the page so the information can be found by following categories.  (This could also be solved by allowing category links to apply to sections instead of the page as a whole, but I'm done with offering pie-in-the-sky technical fixes for problems).  --JeffW 16:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles that cover many topics briefly - how to categorise? 

message: I'm confused over whether a category of articles linked by a person should be grouped under :Category:Categories by person or :Category:Categories by topic? I think that the "by person" category should be used to group articles about the person (biographical, what the person did in their lifetime, etc), and that this should be clearly distinguished from a higher level category that groups a wider range of articles linked by the topic of that person and his works and related materials. The "by name" categories are already in a subcategory of the "by topic" category, so the logic works well here.
Essentially, I would expect to be able to find a group of articles about person X by finding the article on person X, and then clicking on a category link at the bottom to a category of articles about the person, and then clicking on a link in that category to get to a grouping of articles about the subject concerning that person and wider issues such as study of that person and the influence of that person.
Does this description of "by topic" and "by person" sound right? Carcharoth 21:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories by name and Categories by topic 

message: Hi, I compared MediaWiki's category system and its usage in Wikipedia with traditional classification and collaborative tagging. People tend to confuse a lot in categories so maybe my paper can help a bit (or confuse you even more - it's a scientific research paper ;-)
:the paper, short intro
Greetings -- Nichtich 09:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  category research 

message: What is the proper hierarchy for including naval subcategories, articles or subcategories?  For example, looking at :Category:Destroyer classes, almost all of the ships classes have both an article and a subcategory (such as the Arleigh Burke class destroyer article and :Category:Arleigh Burke class destroyers), however in some cases the article is a member of Category:Destroyer classes while in other cases it is the subcategory.  Thanks, --Kralizec! (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper hierarchy for naval categories?