[Wikipedia-l] Categories: An implementation

[Ray Saintonge]

Magnus Manske wrote:

> "Category inflation" will be counter-productive. The whole *point* of 
> categories is to group large number of articles into them. If we had 
> 130000 categories for 130000 articles, it would not really do any 
> good, would it? 

This may not be as much of a problem as it at first appears.  Categories 
will be subdivided or split off as the need arises.  Developing a nice 
bell curve in a statistical analysis can depend on choosing the right 
group sizes.

> And how should filtering be done if we have categories "adult", "sex", 
> "sexual content", "sexually explicit", etc. all for the same thing? If 
> we want to make it an option to block "sex stuff", it has to be one 
> option (maybe two at max), not a dozen or more. 

Using some kind of codification helps here.  A single code could 
incorporate all the items listed above.  I'd be inclined to have a range 
of possible categories for this.

>> And non sysops can quietly go on creating lists as
>> they are currently doing. We don't really need
>> categories anyway. Lists are fine.
>
> Today, someone talked on one of the mailing lists about one of your 
> lists that took five minutes to save and slowed down the whole 'pedia 
> significantly. 

Whether something gets put onto a list is pretty hit and miss, and 
completely uncontrolable.  If we look at any list on Wikipedia we can 
never be certain that it in fact includes avery relevant article.

> Categories are my implementation of the filtering issue, something 
> that would be quite difficult with lists. It could also work to tag 
> images as "GFDL", "public domain" or "fair use". It can also replace 
> the lists. So, if we implement a filtering option anyway, why not use 
> the opportunity?

It can be used to flag a very wide range of "impaired" articles.

Ec