[WikiEN-l] bizarre: Women Novelists Wikipedia

[Carcharoth]

On 4/26/13, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
> On 26 April 2013 05:19, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> The thing is that if someone is in a subcategory they are then taken out
>> of the category. So, if the subcategories are applied, nearly everyone
>> should be removed from the higher category such as American novelist.
>> Obviously this was not thought through well. If there is to be a female
>> novelist category there must be a male novelist category. This will
>> become more and more evident as time passes and situation equalizes.
>
> This is normally the case, but there's an explicit exemption for
> gender: at least in theory, single-gender categorisation (where we
> have just "female" without a corresponding "male" category) should not
> be "exclusive", and people should be categorised in both.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality#Gender
>
> Removal from the main category should (again, an aspirational
> "should") only occur when we are completely splitting it into gender
> subcategories.

Yes, but if you try and explain the concept of something being in two
categories at the same time to people not familiar with Wikipedia's
categorisation system, and who are only looking at one of the
categories and getting all upset, it can be difficult. There is a
valid point that those looking at one category based on gender (let's
say female) will think that the 'main' category won't contain male and
female.

Unless the category page explicitly states at the top in the
'description' part of the page, and in a prominent fashion, that the
main category does and should contain both genders, and that the
female subcategory is a convenience when a particular area has been
studied in gender terms.

Personally, I think the de-wiki way is the better way, and the
categorisation system needs to adapt to intersection possibilities.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Category_intersection

That's an old proposal, but is it becoming more feasible now?

Carcharoth