"Cool Cat" wrote
You should be seeking consensus. Waiting a day or week to determine the best way to categorize will save you and everyone else significant amount of time. Are you 100% certain that the mathematics categories are the most effective to navigate the articles?
Bad argument. I'm not 100% certain. I know enough about it, though, and enough about Wikipedia in general, and enough about how to deal with issues that may arise. Timidity in the face of a pile of grunt work to do has never been the WP way.
Categorization should not be rushed. Approval is not the case. See how stub template proposals are handled at wikiproject:stubs
The fact that particular areas deserve close attention, to prevent avoidable annoyance, is not a general argument. Evolving fine-tuned sets of rules is sometimes a solution, but arguably sometimes part of the problem. This type of discussion (why don't we micromanage everything with a rulebook and experts?) constantly recurs in different forms.
Charles
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You are missing the point and issue. Are you suggesting that we should continue the way we are doing things right now? What is your standpoint, I do not understand at all. If you have a better idea to deal with the problem feel free to propose it, please do not ask us to continue the non-working system as already demonstrated.
Not a bad argument at all. So if your idea breaks at a point we will end up with hundreds of improperly tagged math related articles. We have over 1,500,000 articles so we better not screw up in mass categorizing them. Cleaning up the mess is very tiresome.
Rulebooks and experts are not part of my or anyones proposal so far. In fact I am not in any way proposing rules or guidelines. What I am proposing is a discussion of any new categories.
- Cool Cat
On 2/13/07, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Cool Cat" wrote
You should be seeking consensus. Waiting a day or week to determine the
best
way to categorize will save you and everyone else significant amount of time. Are you 100% certain that the mathematics categories are the most effective to navigate the articles?
Bad argument. I'm not 100% certain. I know enough about it, though, and enough about Wikipedia in general, and enough about how to deal with issues that may arise. Timidity in the face of a pile of grunt work to do has never been the WP way.
Categorization should not be rushed. Approval is not the case. See how
stub
template proposals are handled at wikiproject:stubs
The fact that particular areas deserve close attention, to prevent avoidable annoyance, is not a general argument. Evolving fine-tuned sets of rules is sometimes a solution, but arguably sometimes part of the problem. This type of discussion (why don't we micromanage everything with a rulebook and experts?) constantly recurs in different forms.
Charles
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
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On 2/13/07, Cool Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
You are missing the point and issue. Are you suggesting that we should continue the way we are doing things right now?
Um, yes.
Not a bad argument at all. So if your idea breaks at a point we will end up with hundreds of improperly tagged math related articles. We have over 1,500,000 articles so we better not screw up in mass categorizing them. Cleaning up the mess is very tiresome.
Better is the enemy of good enough. Keep in mind that readers (you know, those people we're actually writing the encyclopedia for) are browsing through categories *right now*. It's nice, of course, to take a few months for an extensive discussion of how a particular category tree should be structured -- WP:MILHIST does this all the time -- but it's important that this not prevent the creation of a flawed, but *good enough for the reader* scheme in the interim.
Rulebooks and experts are not part of my or anyones proposal so far. In fact I am not in any way proposing rules or guidelines. What I am proposing is a discussion of any new categories.
The vast majority of new categories are "duh, obvious". For example, if an editor sees a "Battles involving France" category and a "Battles involving Germany" category, but no "Battles involving Italy" category, they really don't need to discuss the issue beforehand in order to create it; the number of errors you get by simply extending existing schemes to encompass all countries/states/etc. is so low that they can be quite neatly handled after the fact.
Massive reorganizations should, generally speaking, be discussed beforehand; but do people actually undertake them without discussion in practice? I haven't really encountered that sort of thing.
Kirill
The real people out there want reliable ways of navigating categories. A one week discussion propr to mass categorization is a necesary evil IMHO. I do not believe it is reasonable to suggest otherwise.
Yes. we can't have such discussions because we do not have a median for it. Country categories are generally have been consistent and we do not have a lot of problems there since we have been following a solid and well discussed pattern. There is no rule book, though there is a vague guideline.
As for people categories, we currently have a mountain load of useless categories. And over-all they are a mess. CfD has tens of cases every day.
- Cool Cat
On 2/13/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/13/07, Cool Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
You are missing the point and issue. Are you suggesting that we should continue the way we are doing things right now?
Um, yes.
Not a bad argument at all. So if your idea breaks at a point we will end
up
with hundreds of improperly tagged math related articles. We have over 1,500,000 articles so we better not screw up in mass categorizing them. Cleaning up the mess is very tiresome.
Better is the enemy of good enough. Keep in mind that readers (you know, those people we're actually writing the encyclopedia for) are browsing through categories *right now*. It's nice, of course, to take a few months for an extensive discussion of how a particular category tree should be structured -- WP:MILHIST does this all the time -- but it's important that this not prevent the creation of a flawed, but *good enough for the reader* scheme in the interim.
Rulebooks and experts are not part of my or anyones proposal so far. In
fact
I am not in any way proposing rules or guidelines. What I am proposing
is a
discussion of any new categories.
The vast majority of new categories are "duh, obvious". For example, if an editor sees a "Battles involving France" category and a "Battles involving Germany" category, but no "Battles involving Italy" category, they really don't need to discuss the issue beforehand in order to create it; the number of errors you get by simply extending existing schemes to encompass all countries/states/etc. is so low that they can be quite neatly handled after the fact.
Massive reorganizations should, generally speaking, be discussed beforehand; but do people actually undertake them without discussion in practice? I haven't really encountered that sort of thing.
Kirill
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On 2/13/07, Cool Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
The real people out there want reliable ways of navigating categories. A one week discussion propr to mass categorization is a necesary evil IMHO. I do not believe it is reasonable to suggest otherwise.
A week-long discussion is unnecessary for the obvious cases, and far too short for the complex ones. If people really think that a week is enough to hash out all the issues with a reasonably large and convoluted category tree, that may explain why so many things show up on CFD. In my experience, the only thing that can be done in a week is a reasonably straightforward mass renaming/renesting/etc. of a set of structurally equivalent categories (although even that is pushing it); actually figuring out, from a chaotic state, how to arrange a large category scheme generally takes several months.
Kirill
Well... Currently we do not have a second of discussion, thats clearly not better now is it?
Obvious cases fit an existing scheme.
- Cool Cat
On 2/13/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/13/07, Cool Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
The real people out there want reliable ways of navigating categories. A
one
week discussion propr to mass categorization is a necesary evil IMHO. I
do
not believe it is reasonable to suggest otherwise.
A week-long discussion is unnecessary for the obvious cases, and far too short for the complex ones. If people really think that a week is enough to hash out all the issues with a reasonably large and convoluted category tree, that may explain why so many things show up on CFD. In my experience, the only thing that can be done in a week is a reasonably straightforward mass renaming/renesting/etc. of a set of structurally equivalent categories (although even that is pushing it); actually figuring out, from a chaotic state, how to arrange a large category scheme generally takes several months.
Kirill
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