On 6/7/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 6/4/06, Roger Luethi collector@hellgate.ch wrote:
For instance, how do you connect the districts of Paris to the category Paris? What is a subset of the parent attribute "Paris": "Districts of Paris", or "Quartier Latin", or neither? Does it bother you if the article on a French district is now in a subcategory of "Capitals in Europe"?
[[Category:Paris]] is a theme, not an attribute, so [[Category:Paris]] should not be a subcategory of [[Category:Capitals in Europe]].
Is it practical to have people debating whether something is a theme or an attribute?
There's nothing to debate. Either the subjects of articles within a category have an "is a" relationship, and are attributes, or they don't, and are themes.
[[Category:Women]] could be a subcategory of [[Category:Woman]]. Making an attribute a subcategory of a theme is allowed, it is the reverse that is not allowed.
Avoid distinctions that will have to be re-explained every time another newbie joins.
Why? The MoS is filled with rules that have to be re-explained every time another newbie joins. Do you capitalize "External Links" or do you write "External links"? The MoS says it should be the latter, but this is by no means obvious.
In order to lower the learning curve for newbies, should we abandon all attempts at having a consistent style?
In any event, things wouldn't be perfect. Ultimately the best solution would involve fixing the category system itself, a process which should be approached carefully so as to avoid making the same mistakes all over again. The advantage of my proposal to not allow themes as subcategories of attributes is that it can be implemented today, without much disruption, and without modifying any code. Plus, it allows for a relatively straightforward upgrade path when the category system is fixed. The proposal itself is not the fix, it's a temporary workaround.
As an alternative, it would probably be possible to do all of this even without enforcing the subcategory rule. But all purely attribute categories would have to be identified as such. I'll have to think about that.
One can work towards this, but any enforcement is a bit like passing a law that requires everybody to think logically.
Not at all. All that's required is that people who do think logically are allowed to fix things up and have somewhere to point to if they are challenged.
Anthony