On 8/22/06, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:
The system would need some re-thinking for MediaWiki
because in
MediaWiki, the category structure is not a tree as it is in my case. In
fact, MediaWiki's category structure isn't even acyclic, even though I'm
pretty sure most people would agree that it should be acyclic and that
the system should enforce acyclicity by rejecting edits that would
create a category loop.
Heh, I'm apparently not "most editors". I know I keep harping on, but
if we don't define what the relationship "subcategory" means, how do
we know that cycles are meaningless? In particular, how would you know
where to break a cycle? In some of our fuzzier areas, the subcategory
relationships are so vague and arbitrary that there doesn't seem any
major harm in following the chain and ending up back where you
started.
Steve