2006/8/24, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com>om>:
Problem is,
they ARE behaving as they should. Or at least, they are
behaving like those who work on them think they should.
I don't know, I've pointed out a few local weirdnesses in categories
to people and they've generally been fairly receptive. It *seems*
logical at first that Category:John Lennon is a subcategory of
Category:The Beatles. But not when you consider that John Lennon ends
up being a subsubcategory of Category:English rock bands.
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.
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.
The category
system is a mess, a labyrinth. But I don't see any way to
improve that any more. I have given up on them, to me they're just the
sewer of Wikipedia now. Which is a shame, because they looked so great
when introduced. But apparently it's typically something where the
lowest common demonimator decides the level of the whole. Where
there's two possibilities, both will have people in favor of them, and
in the case of categories, it's the stupidest of those two who will
prevail.
I interpret it differently. I think categorising stuff well is more
difficult than editing articles. Generally, categories are structured
relatively badly, and used relatively badly - not through ill will,
but just lack of understanding. OTOH, it actually doesn't take that
long to totally clean up a category.
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.
Maybe 2 hours to evaluate and
recategorise 100 articles.
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.
--
Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels