Hello all -
This may have something to do with the ongoing discussion on categories.
I just did a little restructuring of the Wikiprojects Catalogue today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject), renaming some of the categories. I don't think any of them should be objectionable, but please let me know if they are. More importantly, I have renamed/ changed the content of two of the Wikiprojects - Authors (empty) and Novels, under the Literature section. They appear not to have been much of a success. There is already a Wikiproject for Books, and I feel this is far too vague, and I have split the Books section further into Classic & Canonical Fiction, Contemporary, Poetry, Mass Market and Genre Fiction, and Miscellaneous Prose. To include really vague sections - "novels" and "authors" under an already very vague section, makes things far too confusing. We should list either Authors or Books, not both (I prefer Books, since one Author might fit in too many categories); I am keeping an Authors LIST to make navigation quick, but that's all (it needs editing and lengthening); the link to the "Novels" section has been removed, but the page is still available at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] in case someone wishes to retrieve it for some reason. If it's not needed, please delete it.
I would also like to bring together as many people as possible to contribute to the main Literature Wikiproject, under which I hope to incorporate the History of Literature and mention numerous writers from all the world who may or may not be well known in the West, but are not given enough space anyway; similarly for the (new) Painting and Sculpture, Opera, International Cinema and any related projects. All comments, contributions etc welcome. (The above is also posted the Wikiprojects Talk page.)
As for the Categories issue: I have not thought about it as profoundly as some of you have. I only joined about three days back and I posted this at the Village Pump and Help Desk not long after:
"There is no coherent, rational structure or index for the distribution of articles, and no specified protocol which makes this structure/ index possible; because the current distribution is not rational, access routes to information are not reversible. Though each article has links that lead to other links, it is quite random; to illustrate with an example, a) User A creates article on Famous Scientist. Famous Scientist belongs to Specific Science, and is citizen of Certain Country; however, clicking on link to "Specific Science" does not lead to a COMPREHENSIVE list of famous scientists which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question; in some cases it does not even lead to a list, or a history, or any such thing; similarly, clicking on "Certain Country" does not lead to a comprehensive list of famous scientists, or even "Contributions to Science" subdivision which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question. User A may make an effort to rectifying said links and lists, but there are too many articles, lists, links and so on to ensure the changes have much impact. It would be much simpler to encourage a protocol among article creators and editors that would give rise to indexing, and will make these "information access routes" smoother and rational. (Additional note) b) I see there are " Wikiprojects" for some subject areas - would it be possible to direct newcomers to existing Wikiprojects, or ask them to create new Wikiprojects, so that groups of related articles can be effectively indexed and linked to each other, and category-wide changes can be requested and/or tracked?"
I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.
Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.
Thanks!
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Simonides of Ceos wrote
I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out
categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely. Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created. Thanks!
Does it work that way? My experience is that WikiProjects typically have a stated aim of 'standardising' how articles are written; which sounds good to some people but is never enforceable and can be too prescriptive. Categories can be added by individuals acting alone. Where there are already lists of articles by topics, adding categories is relatively straightforward. The creation of such lists really ought to devolve to relevant WikiProjects; but that doesn't see to be how it pans out in practice.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote: Does it work that way? My experience is that WikiProjects typically have a stated aim of 'standardising' how articles are written; which sounds good to some people but is never enforceable and can be too prescriptive. Categories can be added by individuals acting alone. Where there are already lists of articles by topics, adding categories is relatively straightforward. The creation of such lists really ought to devolve to relevant WikiProjects; but that doesn't see to be how it pans out in practice.
Charles, if that is not the way they have worked so far, my suggestion - of using Wikiprojects to smooth out categories and make people interested in a specific topic work together - is what I would like implemented from now on, at least in the Wikiprojects I am interested in. Adding Categories at random makes things immensely confusing, as I have discovered in the past couple of days - I can't even create an index of writers without running into scattered lists that overlap in some places and are very incomplete in others, and are not the same as identically labelled lists elsewhere (ex. List of French authors does not correspond to the list of French writers on the French personalities page.) A minimal standardisation - ex. the formatting of an article into Bio, Works, Bibliography, External Links, Categories - makes perfect sense, and I don't believe that is too prescriptive - it's not much of an imposition on actual content.
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Simonides of Ceos wrote:
Charles, if that is not the way they have worked so far, my suggestion - of
using Wikiprojects to smooth out categories and make people interested in a specific topic work together - is what I would like implemented from now on, at least in the Wikiprojects I am interested in.
I think using a WikiProject page to get discussion on more systematic use of categories is a good idea.
Adding Categories at random makes things immensely confusing, as I have
discovered in the past couple of days - I can't even create an index of writers without running into scattered lists that overlap in some places and are very incomplete in others, and are not the same as identically labelled lists elsewhere (ex. List of French authors does not correspond to the list of French writers on the French personalities page.) A minimal standardisation - ex. the formatting of an article into Bio, Works, Bibliography, External Links, Categories - makes perfect sense, and I don't believe that is too prescriptive - it's not much of an imposition on actual content.
I suppose I have the luxury of working mostly in an area - mathematics - where the system of listing was worked out before categories arrived. (Also, I added most of the lists myself, so I don't have many problems with that system!).
I do see that jumping straight to categories before having a good list system is quite tough, and potentially confusing. It seems to me like doing two things at once; I have compiled many lists, and the job is mainly to _find_ everything, before thinking deeply about subclassifying. The technique for that that works is to explore all backlinks. This takes time, and those who want a quick solution underestimate quite how much material there is in Wikipedia, often in a neglected state.
But as for inconsistent systems: I think on any wiki site one has to get used to the idea of multiple, parallel systems. There is no centralisation - that's a fact of life here. Intellectually I'm very sympathetic to the organising/centralising tendency, actually. It really is better to think of it all as 'infrastructure', though - no reason to worry about bus versus train questions.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
Simonides of Ceos wrote
I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out
categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely. Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created. Thanks!
Does it work that way? My experience is that WikiProjects typically have a stated aim of 'standardising' how articles are written; which sounds good to some people but is never enforceable and can be too prescriptive. Categories can be added by individuals acting alone. Where there are already lists of articles by topics, adding categories is relatively straightforward. The creation of such lists really ought to devolve to relevant WikiProjects; but that doesn't seem to be how it pans out in practice.
I agree that there is a standardizing aim that is an essential part of the WikiProjects, and that's just fine. I welcome the efforts to give some depth to the study of what links some topic. We get into trouble when the standardizers begin to see their guidlines as implicit rules, or their descriptions as implicit prescriptions.
It makes some of us cringe, but at this stage categorization is a chaotic process, and that's good. If someone's categorization proposal is a good one, others will eventually begin to use it; there is no need to enforce it. What doesn't work will die from disuse.
Ec