[WikiEN-l] Types of categories

[Roger Luethi]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:01:26 +0300, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> > The problem there, now that I think about it, is that Paris should not
> > be in the category "Paris" (as was pointed out by someone else).
> 
> Actually, if we consider "Paris" a thematic category, then it makes 
> sense for Paris to be in it, since it certainly fits the theme.

Heh. Valid point, and it seems that many editors would agree with you.

> In fact, we _could_ have a parallel taxonomic category tree that focused 
>   solely on geography, with "Districts of Paris" being a subset of 
> "Places in Paris", which in turn is a subset of "Places in France" (but 
> _not_ "Cities in France") and "Places in Europe" and ultimately 
> "Places".  So we'd have a tree of taxonomic "Places in [Region]" 
> categories, each one having subcategories named either "[Divisions] in 
> [Region]" or "Places in [Subregion]", with the root of the tree being 
> "Places".  (I'm torn on whether we'd need a second-level category 
> "Places on Earth", though.)

[[Category:Subdivisions by country]] does something like that.

> The plural/singular distinction may not be ideal, but does feel very 
> natural in many cases.  It's not without problems, though: what about, 
> for example, the category "Sheep"?

Now _that_ is fortunately a minor problem. Call one of them "sheep
(thematic)" or something. It's not like namespace collisions are unheard of
in WP.

Roger