Charles Matthews wrote: None of which is done on the astronomy list I mentioned as an example. See your quote of mine. Doesn't [[:Category:Stuff]] work? If I have a list of links, then each of the linked pages will appear on the search engine anyway. I wish we had some way to automatically subdivide them alphabetically - oh wait, category pages... :-) Magnus

On Wednesday 23 June 2004 16:59, Magnus Manske wrote: Why would categories not appear in search engines? I agree with you. Categories can't replace all list functionality, but they are ideal for replacing "List of X topics" lists.

Stan Shebs wrote Well, again, I want to enter a protest here. In particular, I think there should be a very compelling reason, before encouraging anyone to remove any link from any list. Charles

Stan Shebs wrote Well, categories 'have to be maintained manually', too, in the sense that if no one adds a category to a new page, it won't show up. Further, as I have pointed out, the history of a list can show someone what has been added recently, which is the other thing (besides RelatedChanges) one would really want in following a topic area. Also, how does one discern subtle bits of vandalism/insertion of POV slants in categories, if there is no monitoring provided? AFAIK there is no way of monitoring that short of having the pages automatically added to one's watchlist (and kept there). Which I suppose might come in time. I'm not speaking for the astronomers here. It's not an area I follow. I know the basic maths lists make good use of links to Talk pages, so the RelatedChanges picks up the talk about everything, too. That's something that has been lacking in the software, up to now. So, categories have been around for a few weeks; and we are hearing already that the technology is better. It's not: I should imagine we should want to have a much longer trial before even being convinced that it is sound for the intended purpose. Charles

Woah, wait. Are you saying that as items are added to categories (or vice versa), they should be deleted from the list page? No, that's entirely inappropriate. Lists serve an entirely different purpose from categories. To begin with, they have red links that let users know that an article is needed. I really don't think we should be destroying list pages just because categories are around! RickK Stan Shebs <shebs(a)apple.com> wrote: Magnus Manske wrote: Since those kinds of lists are essentially pre-category attempts to make categories, I think it's worth using them like we do "list of encyclopedia topics" - remove topics as they are categorized, provide a link to the category at the top of the list as a hint about where the rest of the list went. Seems like these lists could become a better per-area substitute for the requested articles page, since the lists of topics will tend to become a list of unwritten articles that somebody thinks are needed. Stan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!

Read a little more carefully please - I specifically limited my suggestion to the "list of X topics" lists, which rarely if ever have any useful content or organization and are not used by readers (in fact editors generally ignore them too, most have become woefully incomplete) *and* was only talking about removing the blue links, in the same way that one would remove entries from a wanted articles page. As the creator of some of the largest reader-oriented lists in WP, I'm hardly eager to damage those! Stan Rick wrote:

Charles Matthews wrote: It's true that the math lists you maintain have more structure than a link farm, and I applaud that; those are the kinds of lists that add value beyond what categories can do, and I think all WP lists should do that sort of thing. But Google for '"list of" topics', and you'll see that what you've been doing is the exception rather than the rule. Look at their histories, and you'll see many have been abandoned too. Interestingly, of the more-structured topics lists, the primary organizational scheme looks just like one would expect of a subcategory structure. So even those are not adding more value than would categories (modulo the related changes button). Please note that I'm not saying to change everything today; it's just that the availability of additional software support in the form of categories opens up all kinds of possibilities, one of which Magnus pointed out at the start of this thread, and we should be thinking about creative ways to make use of the software, not fold our arms and insist on doing everything the same old way. Just as a small example, when I started throwing articles into the "ship classes" category, a couple jumped out as inconsistently named, a detail which had long been masked by redirs. It might have been quite a while before anybody thought to make up a list of ship classes, and noticed the redirs on it. Stan

On 06/23/04 19:24, Rick wrote: I concur. Article series boxes, on the other hand ... why can't I find consensus to have these things shot on sight. Bah. - d.