[WikiEN-l] Types of categories

[Steve Bennett]

On 6/4/06, Roger Luethi <collector at hellgate.ch> wrote:
> Yeah, although it's a very common thing to do. The alternative is to write
> "See also: [[Category:Paris]]" in the Paris article, which is harder to
> find (especially if there are many external links or references). That's
> a very practical reason, though.

Perhaps something like the current boxes we have for Commons would do.
"Wikipedia has a category dedicated to '''[:Category:Paris|Paris]'''.

> If Amelie goes into that category, then the category means "related to
> Paris" and becomes almost meaningless. Do we add every movie that's got an
> Eiffel Tower in it? Every article on people who were born there, died
> there, or lived there? Even if the category remained small, how is such a
> vague piece of information useful? ... It seems that Amelie should be in
> "Films set in Paris" (or something like that), and that category should be
> in the category "Paris".

That would be good. (Pity for this example that Amélie is currently
not in that category...bad choice on my part)

> It's mostly scripts that get confused. I suspect most normal users won't be
> confused but find that convenient.

It confused me :/

>
> Say I navigated down to "British rock bands" (taxonomic), discover The
> Beatles and would like to see what WP has got on them. With the proposed
> system, I need to open the article, scroll down to the bottom -- nope, if
> there is a category for them, the article can't be in it, so scroll back up
> several pages worth of navigation boxes, external links, and references to
> spot the "See also" section which hopefully contains a link to the category
> "The Beatles" if there is one.

Ok, taking into account the previous message, it seemed that the
proposed system is actually:

For thematic categories ("The Beatles"), the archetypical article
([[The Beatles]])*should* be in the category
For taxonomic categories ("British rock bands"), the archetypical
article ([[British rock music]]??) should not be in the category, but
should be prominently linked in the description of the category. The
article should also [[:category:]] link to the category .

That seems workable and keep all the benefits to me. Note that in this
case, The Beatles should be in both categories "The Beatles" and
"British rock bands", but the category "The Beatles" should not be in
the latter (maybe it could be in "British rock music" if that thematic
category exists).

> It's a trade-off. The sensible reason is that while your argument is
> correct, a category that contains hundreds of entries is equally unusable.

I think being able to see all the hundreds of entries in a category
(and its subcats) - on request - is useful.

> The higher category often serves as a waiting room for articles that have
> not been sorted into a subcat or make for a tiny subcat only (several
> subcats [[Category:Astronauts by nationality]] contain only one or two
> articles).

Yeah, and they end up getting greater prominence than they really
deserve. Also, the existence of those articles makes the reader think
that that's *all* the articles we have in that cat.

> > In this case, it would seem best that "Districts of Paris" was a
> > category of the thematic category "Paris".
>
> (I know it doesn't work too well with this example, but bear with me) And
> "Districts of Paris", being an attribute, is also in (taxonomic) "Districts
> of European Capitals" which in turn is in (thematic) category "Europe",
> right?

Sure. Given the proposed rule "thematic categories can have taxonomic
subcategories, but not the reverse", it is possible to have an article
which multiply inherits to the same supercategory. Given that tn is a
thematic category, and xn is a taxonomic category, that gives:

xn(tn(X)) is not possible
tn(xn(X)) is possible

t1(x1(X)), x2(x1(X)) is possible (X is in category x1, which is in
both a thematic category t1 and another taxonomic category x2)
t1(X), x1(t1(X)) is possible but probably not good (X is in thematic
category t1, and also in thematic category x1 which is in the same
thematic category...)

> > This is a perfect example of a problem aluded to in the MoS on
> > categories: Women is both a taxonomic category (it's a plural) and a
> > theme (eg, Women throughout the ages, or whatever). Disaster is
> > inevitable from that point onward.
>
> We can fix that.

Yep. We need to document these new rigid rules somewhere. I do like
the idea of making all categories inherit from some ultimate
"thematic" or "taxonomic" category. Failing that, a template to go on
every category like "This is a *taxonomic* category. Only items that
"are ____s" should go in it."

> > The taxonomic category "Women" could be split immediately into
> > fictional women and real women, then into living and dead women, then
> > again by various means.
>
> So "living women" is taxonomy, but "Living persons" is an attribute?

I haven't thought this one through - ideas would be good. Ideally, we
would have proper attributes, such that "living" could be stamped on
someone (but that "living" could not be applied to artworks, tv shows
or whatever...). I don't know a good way to taxonomise people, but I'm
sure others do.

> One obvious problem here is that you don't have the strict hierarchy that
> you proposed in your initial posting. For Bridges and France, there are
> natural hierarchies of higher or more generic concepts. The relations
> between France and Europe or between bridge and structure are directed.
> Women, living, and fictional have no directed relations. You could use them
> in any order.

Yep. (and all the other problems with my Bridges in France example.)

>
> And another thing I just noticed: The taxonomy in Category:Bridges breaks
> down after only one level, category [[Category:Buildings and structures]]
> which is a subcategory of four themes and nothing else. [[Category:Nobel
> Peace Prize winners]], one of your examples for an attribute, on the other
> hand, contains a stack of "Nobel laureates", "Prize winners", "People".
>
> Your definitions of taxonomies and attributes need work :-).

Heh :) Input welcome! I think the distinction between "taxonomy" and
"attribute" is probably a sliding scale. It comes down to what is
natural. Do we really think in terms of "nobel laureates"? I doubt it
- I think we think in terms of "scientists" who *also* "won the nobel
prize".

> Distinct namespaces for different types of categories. It would involve
> some coding and the migration must be planned, but it might be easier to
> explain and easier to maintain. It would also be another small step towards
> a semantic web.

How many? What would you call them? What are the arguments against?

Steve