Categorization/Archive 7 |
This is an archived discussion page. For current discussion, please see .
=Too many cats--- 20165 to be exact=
There are 20165 categories, from *And how many cats do you think there should be — 03:34, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC) *20,000 categories for almost a million articles seems like a fair ratio, especially taking into consideration that there are a number of categories that necessarily supercategorize other categories rather than articles. - 03:39, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC) *The number has grown by about 50% in the last month! There is a general movement to categorize taking place. I m not convinced it s the way to go. Too many people seem to be categorizing without agreeing a structure first. 09:07, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) *The wiki way of determining what structure categories should have is to let many people categorize articles, and seeing what structure eventually develops out of that. Once a consensus develops the nonstandard categories can be tidied up to match. For people who just plain don t like categories as a concept, how about requesting a preference setting be added to the software to hide them 15:19, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC) *We should have more. Every article should belong to a category. (Can we get stats on how many articles that have categories) 15:05, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC) **About 170 000 articles are categorized in up to 17 categories (Interstate_95, Mega_Man, Elite_(computer_game)). -- User:Docu ***I forgot to mention: Standard_Occupational_Classification_System with 24 categories (I thought it was in Wikipedia namespace). -- User:Docu ***:But that article isn t actually in 24 categories; rather it contains a list of Wikipedia categories which correspond to the official system of classifying jobs described therein. -- 11:01, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC) *26319 categories now - it looks like a large waste of people s effort to me. Some, like the subcategories of 22:38, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC) **It s about 25300 categories for 270000 pages (all namespaces). **BTW the aircraft categories appear quite systematic compared to others with a similar degree of detail. It just that some prefer the same information in one category instead of three different ones. -- User:Docu **Doesn t seem at all excessive to me. Figuring on average maybe 4 categories per article and 40 articles per category, I d expect 10% as many categories as articles. It would be interesting to know what the respective averages are at this time. -- 05:46, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC) **A while back I realized that there were articles on hundreds of ships in the Royal Navy that appeared to be of no particularly special note. Personally, I would have considered it a huge waste of my time to have created all those articles. However, whoever did create those articles clearly had different priorities for the use of their time than I, and I say more power to them; I didn t raise the slightest peep in VfD or anywhere else trying to get rid of all the effort they d wasted. Instead I just categorized all those articles and moved on to other things. :) 06:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
= One-page alphabetical listing =
= Mix Images and articles in Categories=
I can t find any specific information about this; the question arose with 22:18, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:In Bugzilla, there is [http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgiid=450 Bug 450: Categories need to be structured by namespace] . To some extent the lists are already structured by namespace (their name sorts them together). :Contrary to the deletion log sometimes included in categories or user pages, images aren t just noise in the category, but informative. :As it s easy for readers and other users to distinguish them from articles, I d include them. As another example, one could quote . -- User:Docu
::Personally, I would prefer that image pages were not intermixed with article pages and I m pretty sure this had been discussed early on somewhere, but I very much doubt that I could track it down now. It may have been on the mailing list. They might be OK as a subcat though. 23:07, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
::I agree that images should be separate. One of the reasons is that image titles are not always very descriptive and only serve to add clutter to the category. — 02:24, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
:::Ok. Let s try to avoid setting sortkeys for images to avoid that they get mixed with the articles (rather than grouped under Images:..) until [http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgiid=450 Eloquence s proposal] is implemented. -- User:Docu
= Categories with multiple database id s =
I ve been looking through the database, regarding catagories, and I found 19 catagories with multiple id numbers. I ve listed them below. Please let me know if you know anything about this. I m just curious.
22:58, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:There is a list of all those at ). As the category links table uses titles instead of the ids, the categories are less a problem (for me). -- User:Docu
::The ones in category namespace should be fixed now as well. -- User:Docu :::Great! Thank you! 11:43, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Sorting categories =
If we add to the bottom of an article, it ll display: Categories: A | B.
But if we switch it, this order will also switch.
So, there should be a default way of sorting categories. I suggest we sort them by meaning or importance within the article, and not alphabetically.
For example, let s take Edgar Allan Poe:
Categories: 1809 births | 1849 deaths | People From Baltimore | Edgar Allan Poe | American writers | Science fiction writers | U.S. poets | Virginians
That s messy. Why his birth, his death and the fact his from Baltimore come before the fact he is writer Each category has some connection to the article s subject, and the strongest connections SHOULD come first. In this case, I think it should be something like:
Categories: Edgar Allan Poe | American writers | U.S. poets | Science fiction writers | 1809 births | 1849 deaths | Virginians | People From Baltimore
Why Well, simply because: # He has his own category, and therefore, this category is strongly related to the article about him # He is mostly known as a writer, otherwise he probably wouldn t even have an article here! # He was an important US poet ( poet is within writer ) # He also wrote science fiction (also inside writer ) # He was born in 1809 (birth comes first) # He died in 1894 (then death, if it should) # He is a virginian # He is from Baltimore
Does anyone agree with me Then we should make it as a guideline and add it to the categorization page. Thanks 08:44, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC) :Sounds good to me. If no one objects for a week or so, I d say add it to the page. 10:44, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Other sort orders often used are: alphabetical , chronological (e.g. for office related categories). Pywikipediabot formats them in alphabetical order. Template based categories appear above others (generally useful, e.g. the ).
Preferences may vary depending on the used (some skins display the categories conveniently in the top right corner, rather than at the bottom in a separate box). Where the categories are placed at the bottom of the pages, they are generally preceded by a footer listing the most important topics.
The ideal order isn t necessarily the same for articles with 1-5, 6-9, 10 and more categories (see 16).
Personally, I find alphabetical ordering convenient for a smaller number of categories (let s say 1-5) and I m not convinced if it s a good idea to re-write the opening paragraph of the article in terms of categories. If an article has a category of its own, most of the other categories should probably go on that category rather than the article. -- User:Docu
:I m not sure there should be a default. But if we do set a guideline, I lead toward alphabetical order, partly because it s objective. 19:08, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Category for places that are not cities =
A series of municipalities (e.g. .
Is there a suggested -- User:Docu
:If it were up to me, I d put all or most of them together with cities as Communities or Municipalities. But if people are dividing municipalities between cities and towns, then it also makes sense to have other groups for any other types of municipalities or unincorporated communities. 19:19, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::This distinction will be particularly difficult in the U.S.:
:::Just a pedantic point, but unincorporated municipalities is a bit of an oxymoron--the term municipality almost exclusively refers to incorporated, self-governing communities. The term unincorporated community is used though. A couple of other U.S.-specific terms: town (which in some places may refer to a city-like municipality or in other places to a township-like municipality), borough, and for New York, hamlet is often used to refer to communities within a town that are not self-governing or separately incorporated. 21:27, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
I was using municipalities in a (possibly misguided) effort to be general, but, for example, in New York State there are unicorporated villages . -- 23:36, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
: Boroughs , of course, also exist in some parts of the UK (and probably elsewhere); Greater London, for example, is broken down into small units mostly known as boroughs (e.g. Borough of Kensington and Chelsea). -- 23:36, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
= Poll about Category:Whatever|* , |(space), |! =
*Halló, at ). *For the general look and feel it would be usefull to have one solution only. * is used in books for notes , ! indicates attention! . *How to make a poll about this, get consensus, adjust the links with a bot and recomend it to other languages as well Regards 12:06, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC) :I think we should use | for titular articles(i.e. in Category:Swiss Military Airplanes, the article Swiss Military Airplanes should be listed as 20:40, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) :: * is the most common such sort key; see 20:54, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::I m more curious what uses other than putting titular articles first is the sort key used for. Any ideas 21:04, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::::#To sort people by surname instead of first name (e.g., to sort Albert Einstein under E instead of A ) ::::#To sort people by name instead of title (e.g., to sort King Alfred under A instead of K ) ::::#To sort articles in a special namespace by article name instead of namespace name (e.g., to sort Wikipedia:Categorization under C instead of W ) ::::— 21:17, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::::I guess I failed to make my question clear. I ll try again. What do people use | , |* , etc. for, other than listing titular(articles whose title is the same as the category title) articles 11:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::::Also used to highlight selected articles (or subcategories) in a category from a jumble of others, where the jumble shares some property not shared by the highlighted ones (sometimes effectively a see also ). For example, articles named list of in category . Category purests would probably object to such usage, although I find it extremely useful. Example categories include 16:41, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::I think * would be the best solution. 05:16, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC) :: * seems best to me. 05:44, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::I vote |* because it is more commonly used than | , I have never seen the latter. 17:13, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC) *Is this settled yet I often run into both |* and | (although not usually in the same category). I prefer | (and if pywikipediabot doesn t handle this form someone should fix it). -- 16:41, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Categorisation and Categorization =
*Please take a look at **http://www.google.com/searchnum=100&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org&q=Categorization and **http://www.google.com/searchnum=100&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org&q=Categorisation *At least for documentation and categories only one word (probably Categorization) should be used. and other projects could be affected as well. *Could a bot fix this Regards 12:18, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)
**Easy fix: Try http://www.google.ca/searchnum=100&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org&q=Categorization+OR+Categorisation ::User:Docu
*Thanks for the google link. This is not what I was thinking about. I believe that only one word shoud be used else we would have everythink twice here and lot of (wrong) InterWiki links too. [http://www.google.com/searchnum=100&q=Categorization Categorization] is used more often then [http://www.google.com/searchnum=100&q=Categorisation Categorisation]. Could you take care about starting to use only one term Thanks for your efforts in advance! Regards 15:49, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
= Creating categories =
The Creating Categories section says that if you add a link to a category page, the category will automatically be created. I added the text 02:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Nope, you got it right. If you click on the red link you can see that it is populated. When a category appears as a red link, I think it means that it is an orphan category and needs to have a parent category added. It might also mean that it doesn t have any text in it, but I think that is optional. For example, in 02:23, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
::A red link appears when there is no text in the category. Remember that parent categories (category tags) count as text just like any other text does. | 09:57, 2005 Apr 24 (UTC)
==[[category vs which comes out as Categories: Botany | Tree of life What s the deal Which is more correct Why are there two different techniques Shouldn t these two be connected 22:48, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Huh. That s interesting. Haven t come across that before. I think it may be a mistaken attempt to use some sort of shortcut by inserting 23:07, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
Ah. Many thanks. 15:45, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= An article on a subject should be in a category of the same name. =
01:26, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Thanks. See page and please edit. 01:42, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::That s much better. Thanks! 03:20, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Better sorting for year categories =
After some discussion at :
Compare to, say, , which have not been systematically changed to this format.
Any objections to my adding (some of) these suggestions to 21:53, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= The year without a summer =
While working on Selected Anniversaries, I came across 17:29, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I wikilined your mentions of the categories(hope you don t mind). I think this is probably fine. You should check over the items in Anomalous phenomenon to make sure they fit the new definition for the catagory, but it looks OK to me. Please put a short description of what should be in the catagory on it s page. That will help future catagorizers. 22:23, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Er. There is no 22:26, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Created
= Removed section of discussion from article =
I ve removed the following section from project page because it s mainly hypothetical discussion, which belongs here on the talk page. If someone wants to put it back, please expand the original idea in a way that takes into account, but does not literally contain, the comments. - 21:26, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
==Category extraction==
An advantage of categorization is that it allows extraction of large portions of Wikipedia. For instance, if years and dates were as below (leftmost items are regular articles, the rest are categories), extracting, say, a timeline for the 21st century would be trivial.
2004 -> Years in the 21st century -> Years - --> Time periods / 30 March -----> Days in March ----> Days ---
:Please expand this explanation. I see no way from this to extract a timeline for the 21st century just a way to create a list of, say, years in the 21st century or days in March. So where is the whoopie in that - 17:32, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC) ::Where this becomes slightly more interesting is when you have articles on historical events (e.g. Pearl Harbor, John F. Kennedy s Birth, the Great Northeast Blackout, etc.) put in the appropriate time-related category. But the ability to do completely automated extraction depends on how structured the category relationships are. You d ideally like to be able to specify that the article is about an event that occurred during the category or is a part of or is a member of (say, for geographical or political relationships). So far we can only specify generic parent-child and is related to assignments; any other semantics must be inferred. -- 09:32, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
:Sample with Canadian biographies: . -- User:Docu
=Categorising articles about sources/references=
Hi, wondered if any of you had any good ideas about how to organise a schema for articles about sources/references We ve had a look at the existing category schemes and this seems to be rather big gap. Discussion at 18:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Human/Personal Life =
I m not very familiar with how articles that fall under these categories are categorized but my quick checks indicate that the categorization scheme excludes the possibility of intelligent alien life with the same things as humans.
= Categories vs keywords =
I believe many contributors seem to think of categories as keywords rather than hierarchical is a relationships and effectively attempt to use categorization as a general indexing mechanism for wikipedia articles. In the limit, I think this leads to a category for every word or concept expressed in an article as well as requests for features like category intersection and union. As ):
= List vs. Topic categories =
If you descend in 03:55, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:IMO, even assuming there were rules about this (and I don t think there are any - and I ve recently read all the archived talk from this page), they re effectively completely unenforceable. Per the previous topic on this page categories are simply sets, i.e. named collections of arbitrarily related articles and other categories. Rather than some sort of strict is a hierarchy I think a much better mental model for categories as they currently exist is a neural network - quite similar to how articles are freely linked to other articles. Bottom line is I don t think it s a problem that from 05:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:I agree. I think the categorization is more useful to readers if the category means, these are things pertaining to rock music groups (topic) rather than, these are all rock music groups (list). -- 07:38, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks for your responses. they re effectively completely unenforceable : I don t consider this a problem. Wikipedia has lots of style conventions that aren t enforced . That s what human editors are for. For example, there s nothing that enforces the fact that means these are all things pertaining to rock music groups .
::I wasn t clear on how I think it should be organized. 1) Leave the article 17:14, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Inconsistent criteria =
The business and economics categories were disorganized, so for the last week I have spent my time trying to sort it out. The way I approached it was to create a variety of categories, subcategories and subsubcategories. (There are about 50 of them now). Then I have been going through the articles listed in the and deciding which of the 50 or so categories are applicable to each article. It turned out that the average is 2 or 3 categories per article. So far I have added about 1000 tags. I still have 6 of the old lists to go through. In going through this process I have discovered that different people have different ideas about what criterion to use in appending category tags. In particular, I have been in conflict with two other contributers: :One felt that there should be only one category per article and deleted all but the single most relavent tag. :The other felt that an article could not be placed in adjacent categories. I reject both these criteria. The criteria I use is I try to put myself in the mind of the user who is using the category system as a navigational device. I ask myself, If I was browsing in (for example) the Finance category, what articles would I expect to find there, and what articles would I find useful there . Can we arrive at some sort of policy on the appropriate criteria to use before I get into any more edit wars about something as unimportant as which category tags to use. 17:39, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC) : One category per article is just plain silly. Biographical articles, for example, are nearly always in two categories just for their birth and death year, plus another for nationality (although, depending what the person did, the latter might embrace occupation as well); an author who wrote significantly in two languages should be categorized as a writer in both languages, similarly one who was significantly connected to an ethnicity other than his/her citizenship. Etc. :The other I m not sure I even understand what you are saying: does calling two categories adjacent mean they have at least one common parent category Again, the example of a person in the same profession in two different countries at different points in a career is one where this would almost certainly be correct, so it can t be a general principle. -- 19:40, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC) ::The complaint I was getting is that if an article is listed in, for example, [category:Product management]], it can not also be listed in [category:Marketing]] because product management is included as a subcategory on the marketing page. These people seem to think that no article included in one category should be included in any category that links to that category. 21:16, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) ::Let take an example to clarify things. In deciding what category tags to put on 21:35, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) :::I would agree that you should not generally use both a category and its parent category. The only exception is if the article is the main article of a category, then it also goes in the parent category. For example, 00:05, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC) ::At the heart of the issue is whether a structural criterion should be used or a content or user based criterion. When one asks What articles would a user expect on a category page one is starting from the users expectations and working back to the database architecture. When one starts with a structural criteria like number of category tags per article or exclusivity of related categories, one is starting from a conception of an ideal architectural structure and force fitting user expectations to it. I feel a compelling argument can be made that using a structural criterion is doing things backwards. The database structure is there to serve the user, not the other way round. Where the two criteria are in conflict, stuctural elegence must yield to user friendliness. The category content should reflect the real world, rather than trying to make reality conform to a categorical structure. I have seen several category wars where one person appends a category to an article and another person changes it to another category claiming that their link is more relevent. This is the type of nonsense that result from using structural criteria like these. If instead, we let reality shape the structure of the database, links would be provided to both categories, irrespective of the relationships between categories. Right now there is an arguement on the category votes for deletion page over [category:international trade]]. Some want to delete it because they think there is too much overlap with [category:international economics]] (a structural criterion). Others want to keep it but delete [category:interational economics]]. The whole disscussion is misguided. There should be considerable overlap between the two categories because browsers on both pages would expect to see some of the same articles. Many of the topics dealt with in international economics (an economics subject) are also dealt with in international trade (a business subject). Any attempt to force these topics to conform to an ideal database structure free of overlap is dysfuctional. It is an example of the tail wagging the dog . There are other problems with exclusivity criteria. Exclusivity between categories and subcategories will, in time, result in a structure that highlites the poorest articles while hiding the most important articles. As more and more subcategories are added the most important articles, the ones that are important enough to rate a subcategory of their own, will get further and further away from the parent category. The parent category will be left with all the odd articles, the left-overs . In time the parent category will highlite the poorest articles, whereas the most important ones will be buried in sub categories and sub-subcategories. 04:58, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:I guess I m coming in here a little late. I was one of the users who removed some categories. Generally I agree with the categorization policy, which is that we should use the most specific categories which are applicable. This means we don t add the same articles to 05:53, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC) ::Maybe I did not explain myself well, but I am not suggesting that articles should be added to categories as well as their parents . I am suggesting that we abandon any structural criteria (including this one). Whether a category is the parent of another category has no baring on whether an article should be included in those categories. The amount of overlap between categories also is irrelevent. So is the number of category tags on any one article. The only salient criterion is Would someone browsing through a given category page expects to see the article listed on that page 04:11, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::Strongly disagree: Otherwise, most articles would be in every ancestor category of any category that pertains. Broad categories would end up with thousands of articles. -- 06:23, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC) :::That sounds like a straw man arguement to me. I don t see why they would be in every ancestor category . Based on what I have done so far it looks like the 1600 business and economics articles would be categorized as: about 700 in the business category, between 100 and 300 in each of the major subcategories (for example marketing, finance, etc.), and less than 100 in each of the sub-sub-categories. I am not claiming that articles should be placed in both subcategories and parent categories. I reject all such structural criteria. Take the example of 06:41, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::::I m with Jmabel and Rhobite. From a user point of view a category needs to be usable. Having hundreds or even thousands of articles in a category make it unreadable, one cannot see the wood from the trees. Navigating the category system should lead you from general to further detail, or from detail to generality. Having articles in ancestor categories defeats the value of this. : 18:50, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) :::::I think your fears are unwarrented. When I look at the 21:52, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::::Agree with Jmabel, Rhobite and ChrisG. The category system shouldn t become a keyword system. I think the category system can accomodate both IsA categories such as 21:23, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC) :::::I think the idea of focusing on only including the most specific category is unworkable. What is the most specific category for 22:03, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) :::::: It would belong in both; neither 23:28, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
:::::::Jmabel is right, there can be multiple categories for each article, it s just that it should be in the lowest rung of the hierarchy for that particular kind of category. For example, 02:25, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
:::::::::Agreed. Some articles will inevitably be in a lot of categories, because they don t fit into the various categories we create in Wikipedia or typically in the world. I far more preferable to put an article in multiple specific categories than one general category. : 09:58, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::::::::::I prefer to put them in both specific categories and general categories if they are relevent to both. 20:04, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC) *People such as Mydogategodshat who still want to be able to add an article to a parent category of a category it is in (or should be in) should think about how usable a category called People would be if it contained all the articles about people. To say When I look at the 02:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
=Special:categories page=
Page Special:categories lists all categories alphabetically, beginning with numbered years, but is useless because I don t have the patience to scroll past the numbered entries! I need to get all the way to the L s to find the name of the category I need. Can a better way be found to help identify what categories are defines 05:43, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= How to categorizing defining elements of a category =
How does one categorize the defining element of a category, so that, for example, the article city is somewhere pointed to in Category:Cities . It seems some have done this by putting the article city in a category like: Category:Cities| or Category:Cities|* and this may be appropriate. The article city is not actually a city (as an article like New York City would be) so it doesn t belong in a category that is supposed to contain cities (although it would be appropriate in an category like Category:Urban studies and planning . Also, it seems that the first paragraph of the defining element article might should be automatically put in the intro text for the category, increasing the automation of categories. - 22:46, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:As far as I know (and I ve done a fair amount of categorization work lately) there aren t any precise rules about this. Perhaps the easiest solution is using the 05:02, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:: One of the problems with catmore is that it doesn t actually provide any information to the reader when he views the category, only a link. Regarding the defining element, what then is the appropriate course of action for articles which define the subject of a category, but are not in themselves a proper part of that category - 05:42, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:: IMO, simply link to the article(s) defining the subject of the category in the text of the cateogry. See, for example, 05:53, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::: It seems appropriate that there should be, somewhere in the defining article, a link to the category which it happens to define. Less firmly (in my mind), I think it might be appropriate that this category link might be with the other category links, but I suppose that it could also be linked to in the introduction... - 01:52, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I m running into this increasingly often lately. I believe articles ABOUT the subject matter of a category should NOT be category members, but should rather be referred to in the category description and should link to the categories (using See also: or something similar). I m finding too often that others come along and change the articles I set up that way so that the articles are instead within the category.
I find this less useful, since these articles are different from things that are semantically part OF the category, and should be picked out specially rather than lost in the morass of category members. 00:13, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC) :That is the reason they are normally listed at the beginning of the category using the piped sort (ie. 02:21, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC) ::It s not just the inadequacies of the software, but also disagreements about what categories should mean. Some have the view that a category is generally an IS-A relationship. Others think a category should contain related subjects, even if they re not strictly in the set. Maybe some software tools to make assumptions more explicit would help (e.g. maybe automatically generated see-alsos for categories, instead of putting them as members, or something.)
= World War II category question =
Should I delete
16:34, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC) :Makes sense to me unless the category is being used in a manner specific to ethnicity. -- 18:42, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
= Case-sensitive sorting =
The case-sensitive sorting of category entries is rather annoying. Are there any established conventions for dealing with it For example, I just added the sort-text Ponie to the 14:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC) :I have logged a [http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgiid=1304 bug report] for this. 10:39, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
= Proposed policy: article namespace categories should not be added to user pages =
My understanding of main namespace categories, especially for people , should not include Wikipedia users, but there is not a specific admonition against this in the guidelines, but I think it should be added. The closest to an admonition is included in: , where it says:
: Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace should be added only to the talk page of articles. For example, tags suggesting the article is needs work, or is listed on VfD would be placed on the talk page as they are relevant to editors, not an aid to browsing in the way ordinary categories are. Please use on the Category description page to show that it is a Wikipedia-namespace category.
This arose because on which is not the intention of these article namespace categories. Listing himself in , however is entirely appropriate as it a Wikipedia-specific category. I removed the non-Wikipedia specific categories and he reverted the change, claiming no specific admonition against it. It seems clear that it is , or should be, the implicit rule, so I propose to add the following explicit guideline:
: Categories relating to the User namespace should be added only to Wikipedia-specific categories :: Users should not add their user pages to article namespace categories such as .
Any objections, please let me know. -- 09:57, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
:Seems like a no-brainer. Could be even more specific and say that user pages should only be in categories descended from 10:22, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)
::I agree, feel free to reword the above text along those lines. -- 10:29, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
For the record, there is some discussion about this at ( Sarah ) 23:37, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
= Category creation =
The section on creating categories says:
How to create categories Creating a category is as simple as adding a soft link to the appropriate article in the Category: namespace; for instance, to add link. The appeal of categories is that unlike lists, they update themselves automatically, and that one can use them to quickly find related articles. However, categories are not a substitute for lists, and you will find that many articles belong to both lists and categories.
This is incorrect. The category is not created automatically. You have to create it yourself by adding something to that page. You can still put articles into a non-existent category, but it isn t of any use to anyone. Can we please update this to reflect the actual situation A red-linked category, for all practical purposes, doesn t really exist. (Also, a link to the category does appear after the article text.) - ( Sarah ) 17:40, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)|
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