[WikiEN-l] Hello

[Eugene van der Pijll]

Sam Korn schreef:
> On 12/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > I don't understand how it would defeat the purpose of subcats. My goal is to
> > be able to retrieve lists of persons with like characteristics. Unless a
> > person is included in a subcategory, they will not be included in that list.
> > A person who dies from lung cancer, also belongs in the larger list of
> > persons who died from cancer.
> 
> The suggestion is that some kind of tool -- as yet, I believe
> unwritten -- could generate a list of all members of a category and
> its subcategories.  I imagine this would suit your purpose.

Unfortunately, it would not. At least, not completely. Categorization is
not transitive: if article A is a member of category C, and C is a
subcat of D, A need not be a member of D. For example: [[Seine]] is in
[[Category:Paris]], which is in [[Category:Cities in France]], which is
in [[Category:France]], which is in [[Category:Republics]], which
ultimately is a subcat of [[Category:Thought]].

But the Seine is not a thought, a republic, or a city in France.

Categories as implemented now have mixed meanings: they can describe
"is-a", "has-a" or "is-related-to" connections. See earlier
discussions on this list in September 2004 and June 2006
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-June/048183.html).

Eugene