[Wikipedia-l] Categories in the PHP script

[Larry Sanger]

Magnus, can you give me an example of a post or just some point that
someone has made, that constituted a feature requirement such that this
feature in particular is supposed to fulfill it?  There's so much that has
been said on the topic of categories that I can't remember.  I mean, I'd
like to see the feature requirements at the same time we see the feature,
so that we can compare the two.

I do remember one feature that I asked for, along with Jimbo (in at least
one form--the feature, not Jimbo), and perhaps some other people, that
this might help with.  Namely, "Recent Changes" has gotten perhaps so
large as to have too much noise and not enough signal for someone who is
interested only in a few topics.  In that case, my suggestion was that we
categorize edits (not articles) in one of the front-page categories, by
selecting them from a multiple selection box.  (Future edits could be
automatically categorized the same way, or changed by the user as they
become relevant to different areas.)  This is a specific, delimited
solution to a specific, delimited problem, and it would make Wikipedia
more attractive to specialists, which is important.

The category feature you've created could be used in all sorts of ways,
and (sorry!) I'm not sure I like all of those ways.  First of all, it
appears to be a way to get the notion of subpages in through the back
door, by distinguishing a "category" category of articles and an "articles
in this category" category.  So, if used indiscriminately, I'd largely be
opposed to this new feature on much the same grounds that I was opposed to
subpages in the first place.

If, on the other hand, we as a community were to decide that only a
*limited, pre-designated* set of pages could be "category" pages, then
this would be, obviously, different from the old main page-subpage scheme.
In that case, though, I should think it would be better to select the
category for any given page from a drop-down box, so people couldn't mess
up the spelling, attempt to add categories that shouldn't be categories,
etc.  Moreover, while my misgivings with subpages would not apply, for the
most part, I'd still wonder--just because I like to be clear about this
sort of thing--what the feature, used this way, would accomplish.  I
imagine that after the philosophy of language article, we'd have the
"philosophy" and "language" (and/or "linguistics") categories listed.  In
doing this, we would *highlight* the fact that the article belongs to a
number of traditional academic categories.  And we would invite the reader
to begin their exploration of Wikipedia with those traditional academic
categories.  And you know, I agree with the interdisciplinary advocates: I
just don't think the traditional academic categories are *important
enough*, per se, for us to take this trouble to *highlight* them for the
reader.  The reader can easily and will naturally deduce the general
subjects, at many different levels (not just the broadest-traditional-
academic-category level), just by reading the article and following the
links in the text.  The beauty of a well-written, complete, well-linked
article is that one can specifically place its location in the web of
knowledge by reading the article itself.

Of course, I could be just failing to remember or realize some other clear
benefit of having articles sorted into a limited number of various
official categories.

Now, if we *simply* wanted to use this as a standard "see also" section,
some modified version of this might work well.  But it does too much for
just tha right nowt...

Awaiting further enlightenment!

Larry

On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Magnus Manske wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> I finally got to implement the often-demanded categories in the PHP script
> (http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml).
>
> It works like this:
> - Add "{{CATEGORY A category,Another category}}" to the text of an article.
> Separate the categories by ",".
> - Everything between {{ and }} will *not* be displayed within the text, but
> as a category list at the bottom of the page, as well as in the sidebar, if
> you have turned it on.
> - In an article that *is* a category, write "{{THISCATEGORY}}" somewhere.
> This will be replaced with a list of all articles which *at that very
> moment* have a "{{CATEGORY xyz}}" for that category.
>
> See it for yourself at the above site. I put "Gene" and "DNA" into both
> "Biology" and "Genetics" category. "Genetics" itself is in the "Biology"
> Category. On the "Genetics" and "Biology" pages, at the bottom, you'll find
> a grey box, listing all the pages that are within that category.
>
> OK, I know this screams "problems" all over, but it's just the "hooray, it's
> running!" version. There's much more to be done, starting with a sorted
> article output to limiting "Search" and "Recent Changes" to certain
> categories, and so on. But hey, it's a start...
>
>
>
> A more technical note: I also put all the "fixed" text displayed on the
> 'pedia into variables and collected them in one single file. So, for
> international versions, only one file has to be changed, the other files can
> get "technical" updates without having to translate/merge the whole thing
> again.
>
> That's all for now,
> Magnus
>
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