On 4/29/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 4/29/07 6:57 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I still believe, however, that the entire Category system in WP has
lost
focus, direction, purpose - something. And that a serious overall look
at it
needs to happen soon.
I'm not convinced there is a non-technical solution, though. What we have at the moment doesn't work, certainly, but is there anything better?
To find out, starts with enough people - with loud enough voices - agreeing that the status quo doesn't work.
However, actually taking action here, presents to the post I made a little while ago today about WP process.
In a typical physical environment such as a workplace, an organization or some other similar setting, when a problem is recognized to exist, a process is usually in place to deal with such situations. A group, or team, of persons get together, thrash it out, and come away with suggested alternatives and solutions.
How can such a process be handled in the context of Wikipedia?
Marc
One of the problems in this instance, imo, is the complexity of the issue. Just look at this response to my comments:
"Nobody" is a somewhat harsh judgement. Those that do see the problem just give up fighting with those obsessed with their own little corner of categories. The set theory analogy is interesting. *One needs to make the distinction between a set of elements, and a set of subsets which each have one element.
*
Ec
How many people nodded sagely and said, of course, no need to state the obvious to this comment of Ec's? Probably nobody is a little harsh, but having struggled to figure out what they think they're doing versus what they're actually doing with categories on En.Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons, it's very obvious that nobody is not all that harsh, and a few comments about "oh, we're working with sets of subsets, not .of elements," would have gone a long way.
Set theory is deceptively simple and powerful, and the type of organization that people like librarians, and one would hope data base designers (implementation, not coding), do is simply not something that lends itself to inexperienced group think. Not everything Wikipedia is attempting to do, be, and provide, can be had for the efforts of a bunch of volunteers. Having seen it in action, I'm in awe of the type of insight into organization and categorization done by people who organize data for a living.
IMO, as long as we have the mentality that the problem with categories can be solved just like everything else has been solved on Wikipedia categorization will be a failure. This needs a dedicated professional for something this huge, and probably more than one. I don't see anything but wasting time in CfD, categories, and etc., all over Wiki space, until something is put in order with categories.
KP