Category talk:Typefaces

message: I've been adding typefaces to both :Category:Typefaces and the relevant sub-category with typeface articles I've created or modified. My thinking is that it's nice to have a list on one page of every typeface with an article on Wikipedia, and that most people aren't really familiar enough with the sub-categories to know where to look for stuff. It is not policy that articles shouldn't be in both a parent and sub-category (but see Wikipedia:Categorization/Categories and subcategories).
I bring this up because the folks over at Comic Sans keep reverting it when :Category:Typefaces is added. We should decide one way or the other—I think they should go in both, for the reasons above, but it's more important to me what we be consistent for all articles. Please weigh in here and after a while, I'll go with the general consensus. —Chowbok 23:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All children nodes should be listed recursively, but if they fall under a subcategory then the immediate category should be listed.  For example, Verdana is listed on the main page and in the subcategory "Microsoft Typefaces", so I believe it would look best on the main page:  Verdana (Microsoft Typefaces) -- Zab 07:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that possible? —Chowbok 15:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I completely disagree, and general policy agrees with me.  No one denies that having a single master list may be convenient at times.  But it can also be inconvenient at times.  If there are 2000 faces here, the WP software is going to break up the list into separate pages, anyway.  What benefit is there in a single master list, really?  Merely so you can find fonts easier alphabetically?  If you know the name, you can go right to the article!  (I can't think of many occasions where someone is going to look for a typeface and remember next to nothing about it except the first letter.)  You use categories when you're looking for a particular kind of typeface.  Adding :Category:Typefaces in addition to some subcat conveys no additional information—the subcat name makes it clear that it is a typeface.  The fact that the subcat is a subcat of :Category:Typefaces makes it even more clear.  Now, I agree that we can categorize in multiple ways, such as the style, the origin, the usage, etc.  So it is possible to be in multiple subcats.  (An example of what I'm talking about is :Category:Macintosh computers, which I recently sorted using three different criteria: CPU, case type, and product line.  Each Mac fits into one subcat of each of these subcats.  No Macs exist in :Category:Macintosh computers itself—though it may server as a temporary placeholder for uncategorized Macs.)  This is not a problem; it is perfectly fine to accomodate "competing" classification systems.  From WP:CLS, "An article should usually not be in both a category and its subcategory, e.g. Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software — except when the article defines a category as well as being in a higher category, e.g. Ohio is in both Category:U.S. states and Category:Ohio."  There are exceptions to that, but they do not apply here.  FWIW, "flattening" of category display could theoretically be accomplished through technical means, if the Mediawiki software adds it, and the idea has been proposed. ⇔ ChristTrekker 22:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should typefaces go in parent category? 

message: The terms used for describing typefaces are obtuse and opaque to the casual reader.  (Old-style vs modern serif?  Grotesque?  Whaaa?)  These categories do not facilitate navigation unless you are learned in the subject matter.  I'd like to see the category pages give a very brief pictorial illustration of the subcategories.  Perhaps just one or two characters that illustrate the essential differences between the types. ⇔ ChristTrekker 19:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That might not be a bad idea, and perhaps I could work on something like that tomorrow. One thing that I think is confusing is that the classification subcats are interspersed between all the other subcats. Maybe creating :Category:Typefaces by style or :Category:Typefaces by classification could help to contain all the classification subcats. And we could put an illustration on that page to help readers visually identify where they want to go. (for comparison, I believe :Category:Christian denominations is an example of cat that has an illustration that helps navigation.)-Andrew c [talk] 20:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that is what I am getting at.  Categories for grouping categories (cf. Macs by CPU, Macs by case type) would be very helpful, if there are multiple orthogonal categorization "dimensions".  I am no typography expert, just an enthusiast, so I can't speak to that. ⇔ ChristTrekker 21:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I opted for :Category:Typefaces by style because classification is virtually a synonym for categorization so it wouldn't explain how they are being grouped.  (This is a category of categories.  No kidding!) ⇔ ChristTrekker 16:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  differentiating subcategories 

message: There are a number of display faces that are "hollow", without being merely a shadowed/engraved variant.  Are these generally considered a distinct category, or not?  Two examples are Colonna and Delphian, as opposed to Niagara Engraved or Neuland Inline. ⇔ ChristTrekker 20:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My first thought was "incised" but I'm not sure if that exactly fits. My next though (after a brief bit of research) was "inline", but I'm not sure if that really is a classification instead of a descriptor. I'll check my reference books next time I get a chance to see if there is an actually term for that.-Andrew c [talk] 22:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  shadow/engraved/inline 

message: Is there a category for typefaces by script (i.e. Latin, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic)? Badagnani (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No. But the only article that I think that we have on a non-latin typeface is Ming (typeface). Perhaps one day we will need that sort of categorization scheme though.-Andrew c [talk] 19:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

text: There is Typefaces by glyph.  Since it currently contains "symbol" and "unicode" subcats, it looks like the place for subcats based on character range. ⇔ ChristTrekker 16:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I've added categories for "Non-Latin typefaces" and "Typefaces by script" along with several sub-categories under these. I've used "Devanagari typefaces" rather than "Hindi typefaces" as it makes sense to use the same script names as in The Unicode Standard and ISO 15924 Chris Fynn (talk) 15:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typefaces by script? 

message: Someone has been categorizing redirects (specifically, of specifics cuts of well-known typefaces) here. I'm all for that kind of categorization, but not when it's too general. If MyFoo is a cut of the old-style serif Foo, then MyFoo should be in :Category:Old style serif typefaces, not just :Category:Typefaces. A modicum of extra effort would be very helpful. ⇔ ChristTrekker 16:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: No change in the situation. Going to add a diffusion notice. ⇔ ChristTrekker 14:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirects