[WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

[Ray Saintonge]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Ray-
>
>>Not checkboxes, which would indeed require so many that they would
>>become rigid and/or useless.  I would propose searchable write-in boxes
>>where words and/or codes could be entered.
>>
>
>This sounds a lot like my proposed [[Category:Foo]] scheme, only that you  
>want codes instead of words for the categories. My scheme has the  
>advantage that it can be built very easily on top of the existing data  
>structures, with no extra input fields or changes to RC required.
>
>With this scheme, you would have
>
>[[Category:Sex]] [[Category:Sexually explicit]]
>or
>[[Category:Religion]]
>or
>[[Category:Music]]
>
>and meta-categories:
>
>[[Category:Stub]]
>or
>[[Category:Delete]]
>or
>[[Category:NPOV dispute]]
>
>each of these category pages would be editable, but always automatically  
>include a sorted list of the pages that link to the category ("what links  
>here"). It would also be nice if a text could be configured for each  
>category that is displayed on pages that are part of it, e.g.
>
>[[Category:Stub]] -> This article is a stub article ...
>
I think there is much in common between the two ideas, at least in terms 
of what we want the two visions would accomplish.  I think there is 
probably a lot of room for reconciling the two.  I'd need to give more 
thought to the way it might be done.  I can give a few preliminary 
observations.
    1. Codes or words?  Use both, but have a way of distinguishing which 
is being uses, e.g. it is a word if the second character is in lower 
case.  We would still need to find a way of accomodating the "NPOV" 
example above.
    2.  Does "category page" mean a whole separate page?  If it is, 
isn't a category box the same thing, only much tinier, and without the 
need to write the word "category" every time?  Some articles will belong 
to several categories.  

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more to say on this.
Ec