On 8/24/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
No, then you assume that everything that goes into a subcategory also belongs to the main category. Categorisation is not strict set theory, and bundles similar notions. A category:Germany is thus a subcategory of Category:Country, because it is a country.
So what *do* our subcategories mean? It'd be nice to be able to have *some* strict subcategories, to allow assumptions to be made by bots or editors. And then to have other categories where anything goes...
You may think it's logical that being in a subcategory means that there some kind of connection with the main category, and I may think so, but others don't. And when they don't think that something is illogical, they don't think their own actions that lead to such a situation are undesirable.
All of this is caused by the fact that we don't state anywhere what "subcategory" means. It doesn't mean anything! Maybe even a convention of locally defining it, like "Subcategories of this category must ..." would be a start.
It does. At least in the way I want to clean it up. That is, move stuff from too-small subcategories to the main category. You have to apply for deletion of the subcategory, get an objection to that, and nothing happens. That's pretty slow I say - 2 weeks to NOT get what you want.
Why on earth do you want to do this?
I could go and do some categories, but at best it's a mere small improvement where elsewhere there's double as much worsening. More likely I will simply get reverted. If I'm unlucky I'm getting reverted AND branded a vandal.
If you're proposing going around deleting most categories without discussing it with anyone, then yes, you would probably be branded a vandal. :)
Steve