Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:47:59 +0200 From: "Steve Bennett" stevage@gmail.com
On 8/10/06, Bill Clark wclarkxoom@gmail.com wrote:
One side argues that these two categories are inherently problematic, and that a list would be more appropriate because it allows for annotation of entires and referencing of sources.
The other side insists that a list is not acceptible and that a category is required, for reasons that don't seem particularly clear to me but which they feel strongly about.
There's a similar end result problem with a totally different cause at Commons. It's easy to tag images with a category. It's easier to link to a list. End result: half of the images for some topic are in a category with that name, half are on a list.
The easiest solution to me would be to use the text space of a category as the list. You would end up with every entry listed twice: once by some arbitrary sort order (eg, year), and once alphabetically. In the list part at the top, you can put your annotations. The category listing at the bottom basically serves to check that the list part is up to date and that there aren't any stray additions.
This process should not result in the elimination of lists in favour of categories. In many cases both should exist in parallel. (The relevant category tag can always easily be put on the list page.) The two represent entirely different and complementary approaches to information organization. While a list begins with a box and tries to put items into it, a category begins with an item and tries to find the box in which it belongs.
Other than closed lists like "Months of the year" which are essentially complete, and thus have minimal utility, many lists provide us with a dynamic presentation of things that still need to be done. If this results in a large degree of overlap with the contents of a category it's no big deal. The underlying premise that we should be eliminating lists is far from being broadly supported.
Ec