[Foundation-l] Plethora of overlapping Categories

[Fred Bauder]

> Hi
>
> I know I am in the wrong place for this. Normally this kind of thing
> would/
> should go on the "discuss" pages, but category discuss pages don't
> attract
> much attention.
>
> If you consult Categories: Sailors/ Navigators/ Explorers, you will see
> that
> quite a number of people are listed in these arguably (or not)
> overlapping
> categories for the same activity/ feat/ achievement.
>
> To put it into perspective, it makes sense to list a person in the
> categories of [[poet]], [[playwright]], etc, but in each of these
> categories
> such people would be different 'personae', with different works that make
> them merit being classified a poet or a playwright.
>
> On the other hand, to list - for example - Henry the Navigator/ Captain
> Cook
> as [[sailor]], [[navigator]], [[explorer]] looks odd as the activity
> undertaken to merit being given that title is only one. This is like
> calling
> a farmer a tiller/ sower/ weeder/ harvester/ etc.
>
> Generally, there is a problem with Categories, as many were created
> without
> any regard to hierarchy - we have examples of names that appear under
> "British explorers" or "15th century explorers", but then they are not
> listed under "explorers".
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rui
>

The current situation is helpful to the searcher as they need not figure
out, or guess, which Wikipedia has chosen to designate the category.

Fred