Hi all,
I'm involved in a debate about the pseudoscience and pseudoscientists
categories, that seems to be at an impasse because of the differences
between categories and lists.
One side argues that these two categories are inherently problematic,
and that a list would be more appropriate because it allows for
annotation of entires and referencing of sources.
The other side insists that a list is not acceptible and that a
category is required, for reasons that don't seem particularly clear
to me but which they feel strongly about.
Clearly this problem isn't restricted to just those two categories.
There are several guidelines that deal with controversial categories,
and this debate seems to come up whenever there is a vaguely defined
or otherwise "sensitive" category. A more general solution seems to
be in order.
Rather than continue the debate (which from the archives on the talk
page for the pseudoscience category I can see has been continuing on
and off for years) I thought it might be best to simply change how
categories work, so that they can support the features of lists that
are desired. (Yes, I'm using "simply" in an ironic manner :)
I've tried looking through the mailing list archives and on meta to
see if this has been discussed before, but could not find anything
relevant. Since there are many other problems with the category
implementation (big DB hit for category page loads, inability to cache
the results, etc.) I thought I should put together a comprehensive
list of features, bugs, suggestions, and so forth before I begin
development work.
I'd also like suggestions as to the best place to discuss this topic
on either WP or meta.
-Bill Clark
