Categorization/Archive 6 |
= Contra categories =
I don t really expect anybody to care much, and I know the decision must already have been made, but I d like to register the fact that I really don t like the category feature that s been added to Wikipedia. The beauty of Wikipedia is that it constitutes its own category scheme. This just adds another layer of complication to the (large) category scheme that *is* the network of Wikipedia articles. If you want to know how knowledge is organized, you should be able to gather that from the links in the articles themselves. If you want to be able to navigate around articles easily, that s what the links within and below the articles are for. The whole idea of categories as implemented here strikes me as an excuse to impose conceptual hierarchies instead of letting the structure of the universe display itself beautifully, as it will, if we write and interlink articles as you have been. I ve elaborated some of these thoughts, in case you re interested, [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Larry_Sanger here]. Thanks for listening... :I generally find categories to be more useful as a maintenance tool for work in progress than as something readers need to see. Categorization doesn t add much to the handful of perfect articles, but it s very helpful for finding duplicates, spotting poorly-titled articles (with the widespread use of pipes, titles are very often not what they seem to be), comparing coverage between the different languages (several non-English WPs now have hundreds or even thousands of articles with no English counterparts), and so forth. I expect to see them used to aid content checking at some point ( what biographies are still missing birth/death dates ). 16:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC) :First of all, Larry, greetings from a latecomer, and thank you for all that you and Jimbo did on the ground floor. :I performed an experiment which you can see at probably being a myth). I believe the experiment succeeded in mimicking categorical statements; not only
Here is another example from the for the state in which I live:
:Larry Sanger is right to be worried. How many readers care about intension and extension - it looks very like a POV philosophy of thought and language. Categories and their hierarchy distract editors from writing and improving articles, and are now contaminating the Main Page in a way which may confuse casual readers looking for interesting and useful information. 00:19, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC) :As a non-categorizer, I cannot claim that categories are an advancement of knowledge. There are people who use the main page who wanted to use categories to organize the browse topics (look at the history for Main Page). That was the motivation for the flurry of activity in the last two weeks, for Browse by Category, etc. There are people who still prefer Wikipediatoc; you can find their comments on the history of Main Page, and perhaps by communicating with them, you and they can create a critical mass which can effect the change you desire. The philosophy of live and let live has served the Wikipedia well; perhaps it will all work out. 02:22, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The only relevant article I could find on 12:05, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Categories for software platforms =
.
Ellmist has been hard at work adding this category to as many cross-platform tools as he could find, including would look like — but all the same, the intent is to list all notable programs that work on a Mac in one place. It is a noble intention. The question is: #Are there simply too many notable Mac programs to bother with such a category Or, #Should we retain the category, and ##Leave it the same, possibly adding a to contrast, ##Only populate the category with software that runs on Macs exclusively, renaming it ) ##As Ellmist suggested, move the category to ) ##Some other idea I missed
I honestly don t know, and I figured the best place to ask was either here or at the Village Pump. -- 05:25, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
The right thing to do if I decide is to treat all equal; that means we should have Macintosh software, Windows software, BSD software, etc. (Note that we should not use PC ; any computer is a PC, we have to specify platform. So it should really be Mac OS software, Windows software). We shouldn t worry about using too much categories. The category tree _should_ be detailed and articles should be well categorised, when we need it. The cross-platform category sounds good if we can come up with a good definition, like This is a category for software that runs on Windows and Mac OS and Unix (or Linux)-based platforms . That s all I can think of now, but generally I like specific and detailed categories. 15:56, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:Basically, option 2.2 then (using operating systems as platforms rather than machines.) Sounds tedious, but I can see how useful the category would be. One danger is having a gigantic number of leaves under the software platform categories (every single thing that runs under Windows will need — somehow, everyone s going to have to know that all newly entered software needs categorization. (Obviously, anons that create substubs aren t going to do this, but Wikipedians will.) Not to mention the joys of having to retroactively categorize every software article ever written. At least Ellmist has got the ball rolling!
: 00:05, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
::If category Linux software is for software that works on Linux but does not work on other unixen, then 12:53, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea to me. I guess I ll create 05:52, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC) *One way to keep the categories smaller will be to use more specific subcategories, such as 05:57, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC) **I should also note that a 06:00, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC) ***Categories are linked in a graph, not a tree. It s easy to have Application software by platform and Application software by function as two simultaneous categorisation schemes. Category Windows games could be a sub-category of both Games software and Windows software . — 12:25, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC) ****Good point. I ll keep that in mind. -- 18:53, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
I d like to distinguish between Software designed for platform X (and that is unlikely to work on other platforms) and Multi-platform software that works on platform X (and probably also on other platforms) . To me, terms like Macintosh software or Windows software imply the former (so Firefox is not Macintosh software, but the Mac version of Firefox is Macintosh software). — 12:21, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I m still asking myself the question why we need these categories at all. On some point we need to stop making categories, otherwise we ll end up with categories like 14:59, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC) :Solely for organization purposes. After all, why do we need 16:20, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
::My main problem here is the simple question where should we stop There is software that does not run under every windows version, so what exactly speaks against 16:50, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
:::I d rather not have categories that specific, but we can use a simple thresholding rule in this case. Are there enough notable games or applications that only run on Windows 2000, only on Windows XP, or only on Windows what-have-you to warrant their own category If not, keep them in their parents. (Of course, other sparsely populated categories ought to exist anyway, like 18:53, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
::::Well, are there enough notable games or applications that only run on a mac I can t think of any game, therefore 19:48, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
:::::If there are not enough notable Mac-only games, then we shouldn t create the category. We can always keep software that we can t organize in a parent cat until it has enough peers to warrant the creation of a sub-category. For instance, there are hundreds of GNU programs, but many things like and be done with it. And like I said before, I still wouldn t be comfortable labeling a game that only runs under the three most popular platforms as cross-platform ; for me, that term connotes true portability, but I am open to suggestions. :::::Keep the challenging questions coming--I d like to get this well defined if we re going to go live with it. -- 05:10, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
::::::So it would be possible that i.e. , maybe even more I don t really like 3-5 categories per game for such a thing, it simply looks ugly and is not that informative IMHO. ::::::And if we have all these categories, what s wrong with 10:13, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
==Proposed tree==
Instead of discussing what should be in the tree, just edit it! Be bold -- I m serious, I want to see your ideas.
It would be possible to have both a 01:29, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:In the tree above, 04:54, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
I am in favor of renaming 01:35, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:There s always the old fashioned way: create the new category and manually repopulate. Once the old category is empty, send it to CfD. Of course, that ll take all night. -- 04:54, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
= Categories (Questions from the village pump)=
Is it intended that every article be in a category The categories seem pretty disjointed and inconsistent to me, but I think it would be great if they actually made sense. How can I best help in this 03:32, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
:By putting more articles into categories, I suppose. I d agree with you that the categories function needs some work, for sure. 03:39, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:Go to 04:15, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
::It s all very confusing, but here are a few pointers: ::* , we are trying to come up with a better name for Category:Fundamental . ::* seems to be for organising projects to place articles into categories. ::* . ::* Putting existing un-categorised articles into existing non-controversial categories is easy. Just add at the bottom of the article. ::* To link to a category s intro page, use . The extra : at the beginning means this is just a link; I don t want to put my article into that category . ::— 09:50, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
OK, I m trying to put article List of radio stations into Category Reference>Lists and then other subcategories into what should be the new category List of radio stations. But what I really need to do is create a new category with that name, correct I added the Category markup to the bottom of the article. But it will still be an article and not a category, correct The instructions for categories show some scripts, (that maybe will make things (articles) a category), but I have no idea how to run them or if I even can or should. I m in over my head - any ideas
My intention was to make it match television stations, with a subcategory named List of radio stations, and under it would be things like Lists of radio stations in North and Central America, etc. But wouldn t that require deleting the article 11:31, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
:Here are several suggestions: :# Put the article . Just edit the article to do that. :# Create . Just click on the red link, write an introduction, make it a member of one or more suitable parent categories, and save. (That category already exists.) :# Create suitable categories for Radio stations in , and make them members of . :# Add all the radio station articles to the appropriate category. :# Eventually, after everything is neatly categorised, think about deleting List of radio stations. :— 12:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
::Hm .. I just suggested replacing as there is a series of those (many, unlikely for all to have or get articles). -- User:Docu :::Yes, that makes sense. — 13:30, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I put the article 12:43, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC) ::To add an article to a category, you edit the article; you do not edit the category s intro page. The effect is instant; there s no periodic processing. In this case, you should have added 13:30, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC) I generally disagree with the idea that categories supplant/replace lists. Lists can have red links, inviting new articles, categories can t. The only exception I can think of is lists that are known to be 100% complete. 14:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC) : That s a good point, Niteowlneils. So what do you suggest in this case I have a headache from this, so I think I ll stay out of categories until I get some more experience here. But how should we resolve this radio one for now What should be done with the individual items in that list Should they be in that new category, should they be subcategories of it as I originally intended Or just left with no category and the one I did change for Asia be removed from its category Is my assumption that every article should be in at least one category valid Or is it too picky 16:28, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
Categories can have a list of unwritten articles. Just edit the category page and put it there.--
:Also, Lists can give a little information for each entry (like 04:14, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)
= Using sort keys to sort certain articles at the top =
18:49, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
:The convention seems to be to use * , not ! . I ve seen it a couple of times and ignored it, but it seems like a reasonable idea. Perhaps it should be discussed here before being implemented. 18:58, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:I consider it a dodgy hack. There was a discussion here some time ago about using this hack to achieve other custom ordering, such as putting Harry Potter books in order of publication using numeric sort keys. It strikes me that the best approach would be to figure out exactly what effects people want to achieve, then to submit an offering to [http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org MediaZilla] and pray to the gods. (Secretly I want someone to change the code so that category pages display the designated sort key rather than the document title, exposing all these hacks for what they are...) -- 21:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::The best way to place the defining article of a category at the top is to use a space: 22:45, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC) :::It is a hack, but it is a hack with some logic behind it. A broad category like which could have several lists of vehicles that would be separated from the category s sorted list of vehicles. :::Because I think of county categories as broad topical lists for articles associated with the county, I never separate out non-city articles. But as 06:39, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
I d prefer if the space ( ) wouldn t be used for this, doesn t handle it well. -- User:Docu
:If 16:50, 2004 Sep 11 (UTC)
::But if the main article is not part of the category itself, then how will people at that main article know that the category exists 18:16, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC) :::This should never happen. If it does, then you can fix it by adding the article to the category. — 20:03, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:If the bots don t like the space then we could use ! since it would still be sorted as the first article. — 05:21, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
:I have seen all of 20:03, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
::A short overview of the a few non-alpha chars as sort keys:
+---------------------+----------+ | Left(cl_sortkey, 1) | Count(*) | +---------------------+----------+ | | 745 | | | 24 | | - | 234 | | ! | 36 | | | 4 | | # | 4 | | ( | 23 | | * | 1191 | | . | 130 | | / | 17 | | | 1 | | @ | 2 | | ` | 10 | | | | 1 | | = | 4 | | © | 2 | +---------------------+----------+
**-- User:Docu
=placing redirects in categories=
The most famous and influential reggae band in history if 18:58, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC) :I don t think you should place a redirect into a category, even if it is technically possible. If the redirect deserves to be in different categories from the target article, then it probably deserves to be more than just a redirect, so expand it to at least a short article. — 19:54, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:It s generally not very useful, though I added a few I found reasonable to . -- User:Docu ::I had rather assumed it wasn t possible, but apparently it is, so nevermind. 00:29, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC) :::My experience is that categories can be added at the time the redirect is created, but categories cannot be added to an existing redirect. — 06:50, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC) ::::You can do it providing that the entire text of the REDIRECT article is contained on a single line: anything after the first line-feed is deleted by the system. HTH HAND -- 09:45, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC) :It would be useful to specify the display label to override the article s own title. The label will solve the problem described by TUF-KAT above. It also solves another problem where redirected article made the title inappropriate for use in catagory. For example, the article 21:13, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Problems met while trying to rationalize Cities and Towns categories =
As some of you might have noticed, there are two different categories including sub-categories by country, one is . Though I am not an anglophone, I was vaguely conscious that the meaning of .
So am I stuck now in my cleaning up project Probably, but I can always ask for advice, I try to detail my queries:
Definitely we NEED some easy way to rename categories ! -- 20:56, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:I agree with the above. It s confusing having lists of both cities and towns for some countries, especially since there s often no clear cut distinction between a city and a town. :I d like to see a category redirection system implemented, preferably so that if an article is assigned to :Category:foo but that redirects to :Category:bar, then the article appears in the latter category. At the very least I d like to be able to type :Category:foo into the search bar and end up at :Category:bar. When I m searching for the appropriate category to put things in, I might look for :Category:American_foo and be redirected to :Category:U.S._foo. At the moment, I m told that the first category doesn t exist, and have to search further for the latter. When I find it, I have no way of speeding up the searches of others.- 22:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) :It depends on whether there is some concrete difference between the different designations of city or town in those other countries. In the U.S., whether something is a city , town , village , etc., is a matter of legal designation, which determines the community s official name (i.e., City of New York or Village of Marble Cliff ) and the law-making powers that it has (taxation, traffic regulation, zoning, etc.). I think it would take some research country by country to determine whether these distinctions are similarly meaningful elsewhere. If they are, then subcategorization by kind is proper. 02:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Discussion moved from Village pump =
I think categorization has gotten out of hand. We are now getting categories for all years and even for years of birth and death. Conceivably, one could categorize articles in innumerable ways—people who died on Sundays in December of 1921—but what s the use in it I think we should limit ourselves to relatively broad, reasonably useful categories, and not just categorize every way we can think of. 20:42, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:Categorizations of that kind can be useful for a number of things. Its a useful way to group related items. Many of these will just be sub-categories of the larger, broader categories you mention. We re not paper and very specific categories are better than, say, making an article which is just a list.
:But there are too many categories to easily traverse. What we really need is an alphabetized list of categories so one can find specific categories easily. Just my $.02... 21:25, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC) :::There is an alpabetized list. Just click on Categories at the top of any page which is categorized. However ... there are more than 20,000 entries. That ll take you some time to traverse!! 22:48, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
::People devote their entire lives to studying categorizating...I have friends in library science whose heads would probably explode if they saw these. It s kind of ridiculous, but that s what we get for allowing non experts to do anything :) 21:28, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:::That s an excellent point. There s a lot of expertise out there, and there s no point our reinventing the wheel. In fact we are possibly wasting a lot of time trying to do just that. How do we tap into this expertise Or have we already done so 17:34, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I m all for having multiple independent or overlapping schemes of categorization. Yes, right now it s a little out of control. Yes, we probably need a WikiProject to look for anomalies and try to fix them; I ve already fixed a few myself.
I think they are potentially far more useful to readers of Wikipedia than any other form of organization. You can traverse from an article that interests you to the category that looks most likely to you, then up and down the hierarchy category looking for other related material. I like it. I use it.
I don t find year of birth particularly useful, but I don t find the overwhelming tendency to link every year mentioned in an article particularly useful, either. Apparently someone likes it, or it wouldn t be there. It s easy enough to ignore a category you don t care about. -- 23:09, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC) :As an aside having nothing to do with categorization, I have been doing some of the year-linking you mention. When I first started editing here, I asked what the accepted practice was on the manual of style for dates and numbers, and a Wikipedian responded that we should always link dates so that user preferences can change them. I was not aware that there was opposition to this practice. -- 00:07, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC) ::Well, years (1977) aren t dates ( 01:32, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I also think categorisation has got out of hand - seems to me it s for people who like to organise things rather than create new things, though of course there s a place for that. It would be nice if adding categories as the only change to an article could be filtered from a watchlist though, as at the moment it s jolly hard to pick out real changes amongst the noise. This make spotting vandalism harder, for one thing. Any reason this could/could not/should/should not be done 03:42, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:A better solution for the long term would be to consider a change in categorization as a change to the category page, rather than a change to the article page. Then you d be able to watch the category page if you want to watch these changes. This would also fix a lot of other issues, such as mass changes in categorization. I d imagine this would be somewhat of a pain to implement, though. 15:45, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
::But then how am I supposed to know if someone is adding a bad category to an article 22:53, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:You d find out about someone adding 04:57, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I too think the categorization has got out of hand. Some categories are set up so they are only every likely to have a handful of articles. I also think the categories for each years must go. They are basicly doing the same thing that the year pages are. 17:17, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
End moved discussion
= Auto-categorization work =
A page devoted to computer-assisted categorization of articles has been created at 10:16, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Links to categories =
It is, of course, possible to link to a category within the body of an article by preceding the Category: tag with a colon. However, what are folks opinions of this practice I think it s useful. For example, I believe that the article 20:04, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC) :Depends. If the category is essentially the same as a list article that would be appropriate as a Related Article, then I see no problem with including the category as you describe. However, if there already is a list article that is more than a simple alphabetical listing--then I don t think it it necessary to add the category as well. In your specific example, there already is list of Ford vehicles, so I d say no, don t add the category. 20:11, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= Category:Culture by country =
I tried posting this question over a month ago (Aug 20) at , but since I got no response there, I m trying here, maybe someone can explain:
:I m not sure I understand this category. Does this mean that if a culture doesn t have a nation-state, it doesn t get included at this level What happens to, for example, Catalan culture, Gypsy culture, Jewish culture (most of which is an entirely other matter than Israeli culture), the cultures of various Native American nations -- 01:12, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
::I don t see why not. 02:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
=Categories or not=
Has the general idea of categories reached consensus If so, where would be a good place to suggest that people put new articles into categories, and categories into larger categories 02:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
= hello me myself... =
What did I do this morning in my lamentation I lied and I was lying at sometime and I am now waiting for my breakfact while sitting and wasting Time for the sake of John and try to hide my face from some mirrors. So I learn forgive and forget in my own wilderness of wrath as a human being and this is my remembrance and heritage coming from seas and one hearth heated by heathened hearts. I have one dark heart to be shared and that is not a shame.
Who is this person What did he done For what he did err Who will save him from his own hermitage At what time And the sixth question is a gift from heavens yielding one island with cortex. A question called bronze enigma, copper enigma, one coin for serving God and the Word of the God upon the deserted streets washed by lamentation.|
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