Categories considered harmful
Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of categories.
As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
so we can control each other
3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
1. It's not easy.
It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.
2. It's not controllable.
You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
somebody removes an article from the category.
3. There is no common mission
Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).
And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.
Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can easily
be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.
Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.
You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!
Greetings,
Jakob Voss (aka nichtich(a)de.wikipedia.org)
From: "Delirium" <delirium(a)hackish.org>
> I do think ad-hoc categorization is going to end up mostly useless.
> Either it's going to end up hierarchical, but with a rather
> idiosyncratic and arbitrary hierarchy, or it's going to be very
> inclusive and overlapping, with most articles fitting under a large
> number of categories. Nearly all medical articles can go under
> [[Category:Alternative medicine]] as well, for example; [[The Bible]]
> can go under about a million categories relating to Christian sects, or
> even non-Christian religions, sects, groups, cults, and all manner of
> other organizations that have something to say about the Bible; etc.
I don't know but some simple rules could help to avoid too many categories,
like avoiding grand-parent and cousinage, when possible (ie if [[The Bible]]
links to Religious Texts, it shouldn't link to Texts nor to Mythical Texts)
The problem of hierarchy and thesaurus (or ontology) is that structuring the
world is always "ruling" it in a way. If you place Religion under Culture
under Human, you affirm that God is invented by human beings, in a way.
That's why categorising is easily going againt NPOV. But any list or "see
also" links can share the same problems. This "structuring is ruling" (or
"describing is deciding") problem is only more precisely uncovered with
categories (compared to other projects or lists), thus the problem is easier
to adress with them.
Imho categories are also usefull for technical and usability reasons:
a) If I click on a "see also" link, I may get lost because I'm not shure to
find a backward link on next page, and I may forget (after few jumps) where
I was starting from. Nothing is more annoying that having found somewhere an
info and not being able to find it again (that why I often open linked page
in blank explorers). jumping from branches to branches is easier than
swimming in a marsh, even if the tree (not a real one indeed, more like a
nest) cannot be proved to have the best shape.
b) As already said, categories can be helpfull to watch a subject one like.
I never used "related changes" to [[List of China-related topics]], wich is
now split in two parts, because there are too many articles there. I would
watch category Chinese Thought, because it is a lot narrower and is my
prefered topic.
c) Categories tools can be developed to go slowly to something more or less
like those beautiful project boxes, but with the standardisation that will
ensure usability.
d) ...
(gbog)
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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I don't know how to reply to the list thread but I really like Mark's idea
about splitting zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org and
zh-tw.wikipedia.org. This would really solve the problem of navigation
conflicts. I wasn't suggesting this for political reasons but for practical
reasons since the writing scripts conflict with each other.
Whoever is able to split the portal into 2 categories, please do so.
Thanks!
- Ian
-----
Mark's comment:
Interlanguage links are already done with [[zh-tw:]] and [[zh-cn:]], so
perhaps we could simply split zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org
and zh-tw.wikipedia.org, with zh.wikipedia.org being a disambiguating
portal? Of course, this is more up to Chinese-speakers than it is to
myself; just a suggestion that would be consistent with our current
usage. Having separate interlanguage links going to one encyclopedia
that is effectively written in a mixture of two writing systems that are
often not mutually intelligible is more than a little bit odd.
-Mark
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There was a br.wikipedia.org page during a few days,
where has it gone ??
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After we had sent the application to our government, today my ISP told me that
the IP address 207.142.131.235, 207.142.131.236, 207.142.131.245, 207.142.131.246,
207.142.131.247, 207.142.131.248 can be access from Mainland China now.
I try it later, and I found that: all Wikipedia project except Chinese Wikipedia
can be access on my computer now, all Wiktionay project still can’t be access on
my computer. Because China is so big a country, the ban policy may vary from one
place to another place. Some other Wikipedian had told me that they could access
Chinese Wikipedia now. So far it is not clear whether Chinese Wikipedia is still
blocked. It seems that the ban policy is a temporary one.
Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese
is lumped into the Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem
with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up
articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose
whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be
given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should
be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined
together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied
traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version.
The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have
simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into
en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split
zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for
Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
Thanks!
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Joie ! Today 6-17 at 19h20 I can open English and Chinese wikipedia main
pages! It's still a little bit slow, but, if other confirmations come, this
is a really good news, I'd say.
(gbog)
----- Original Message -----
From: "yuanml" <yuanml(a)pku.org.cn>
To: "wikipedia-l" <wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 7:14 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] New info about China's blockage
> We, administrators of Chinese Wikipedia, had contacted our ISP today,
> and they confirmed the block is responsible for the Chinese government,
> and one of them can help us to send an application to the officials who
> are in charge of the blockage. We had sent the application, and now we
> are waiting for the result. If this attempt is failed, we'll try another
> way. We make efforts to change the situation at present.
>
> I had see Mav's comment at foundation-l
> (
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000365.html ),
> I think mav's approach is thoughtful.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hello all,
Could someone please create the domain for a Fanti
Wikipedia (fat.wikipedia.org, going by ISO-639-2)?
Thanks,
Gabriel Beecham
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