On 8/21/06, Aerik Sylvan aerik@thesylvans.com wrote:
I *still* think categories as tags is one of the most promising applications of a wiki, as opposed to hierarchical categories like dmoz. We currently seem to be doing some of both (the administrative categories are essentially tags, while many other categories, ie "Norwegian composershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Norwegian_composers" which is several levels down from the high level musicians category, etc.) and that's really pretty cool.
I think we should *embrace* doing both types of categories, because we can in the wiki structure, it's not an mutually exclusive way of doing things. We can make everybody (sort of) happy. The hurdle then becomes writing code efficient enough to sift through all the records to find what you want.
We had a great discussion about all of this several months ago. Still not sure what to make of it all ;) However, it seems that there are several different fundamental types of categories (primarily, strict hierarchies, and thematic hierarchies), and some good rules on how to combine them (strict hierarchies can descend from thematic hierarchies, but never the other way). It would theoretically be possible and maybe desirable to make the granddaddy of all categories a basic metacategory like "administrative tag" or "taxonomic category" or whatever.
I had a dream that all pages could be categorised along at least one strict taxonomic category structure without resorting to copouts like "... terminology", but I found some tricky pages. Like the rock climbing term "enchainement" which refers to climbing several mountains without a break in the middle. I can't think of any plausible category except the artificial "rock climbing feats". And a couple of other things which really describe particular aspects of various fields that are so unique to the field I just can't think of a category.
I do need to look more at semanticwiki and category math and stuff, though. And to be optimistic that it can and will be integrated into Wikipedia when it's ready.
Steve