Memory Alpha talk:Category tree

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

This talk-page is for discussing category policy, and for general discussion on the categories.

• Single category and category tree suggestions are being moved to Memory Alpha:Category suggestions

Contents 1 General discussion 1.1 This is taking forever 1.2 Fundamental Categories 1.3 Singular vs. Plural category titles 1.4 Reminder - no new categories, please 1.5 Do we need to break this page up?

[edit] General discussion

[edit] This is taking forever

This is taking forever. The current (IMO logical) suggestions can be made in a preliminary catergory tree, so we can get underway categoring (or whatever the word is) all pages. besides, even if we make one mistake, we can allways edit. Nothing's written in stone. We should get started. -- Redge | Talk 16:20, 13 Sep 2004 (CEST)

I've created a preliminary version in the main article. This should serve to clarify this discussion and help draw out more discussion so this proces will be finished this century. -- Redge | Talk 15:55, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST)

I moved your suggestion to this page instead. IMO, the article itself should be reserved for the final version to avoid confusion. -- Cid Highwind 16:02, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST)

[edit] Fundamental Categories

So, first things first, then. What should the fundamental categories (those at the top (or bottom, depending on how you view it) of the tree) be? I think they should follow the same setup as the current Main Page divisions:

• People
• Society and Culture
• Science and Technology
• Space Travel and Hardware
• Around the Universe (this would include the Timeline)
• Meta-Trek (this can encompass Episodes and Movies, Other Sources, and the Production Crew section of People)

This would only leave Reference Tables uncovered - that should get a category of its own, but not a fundamental one.

I was aiming for something snappier, like "People, Places, Races, Ships"... but it wasn't 'inclusive' enough. :D -- Michael Warren | Talk 03:00, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST)

That looks good to start with, Michael. I would suggest calling the last one Production Information. I've never liked the term "Meta-Trek", to be honest.

Something that's important to mention is that articles are allowed to be included in multiple categories. Therefore, an article for Captain Sisko might be listed in Category:Main character and Category:Starfleet officer.

I'd also suggest we have a single overriding category for "Episode" and a single overriding category for "Timeline". For the former, it might make sense to break them down by series, but we've already got a full listing of the series links thanks to the browser bar that's part of each episode page's template.

So, here's my fleshed-out idea for the starting category tree:

• People
  • Main Characters
  • Recurring Characters
  • Guest Characters
  • Starfleet Officers
  • ...
• Society and Culture
• Science and Technology (includes "hardware")
• Space Travel
  • Starships
  • Shuttlecraft
• Around the Universe
• Production Information
  • Actors and Actresses
  • Writers and Staff
  • Directors

I think that's about all for now. I'm sure I'll think of more ideas later on, of course... ;-) -- Dan Carlson | Talk 15:45, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST)

Yeah, as I say, it makes sense to follow the setup we have arranged on the Main Page at the moment, then filtering down into the subsections that have been set up in the same manner - that way we keep the same 'directory tree' that has already been established, allowing an easy replacement system as the categories roll out.

As for the episodes, I still think we should link them into the background area, divide by series then season. A single category would get rapidly overpopulated (of course, like the series/season pages at the moment, each episode can be categorised in both). -- Michael Warren | Talk 17:06, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST)

The simplest (and perhaps best) way, would be to create as head categories People, Around the Universe etc.., make Main Characters, Starships etc.. subcategories, and create seperate subcategories in those for each series: [[Category:TOS Recurring characters]], sub of Recurring Characters, sub of People. The easiest way to get this started would be to simply go to the main page and replace [[People]] with [[:Category:People]], and fan out from that. -- Redge | Talk 16:48, 3 Sep 2004 (CEST)

Which is what has already been suggested. Except that categories are not yet enabled. Replacing the Main Page classification now would a) be futile and b) risk losing the data we have already by cutting the pages adrift. Populate the categories first, then, once that is done to a sufficiently acceptable state, we can replace the standard headings. Don't start jumping the gun. The standard system has served us well so far. -- Michael Warren | Talk 16:57, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST)

I would take what you have suggested and modify it slightly:

• Characters (would you think of all Xindi as "people"?)
• Society and culture
• Science and technology (incl. "space travel")
• Around the universe
• Production information
• Reference
• Memory Alpha (include community and fan stuff)

I think "Characters" might be preferred if the "Production information" is kept in its own section. Also, I would think the space ships are considered "technology" for the purpose of classification. —Mike 09:22, Sep 30, 2004 (CEST)

I don't know if a simple top-down approach is enough to get things going in this case. Perhaps we should collect all possible category suggestions in a "wishlist" and create a structure later? -- Cid Highwind 11:00, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Well, I think that "beings" is preferable to "people" or "characters" then, but I like "characters" the least. I know that "locations" are still being discussed, but would there be any problems with starting to add category elements to technology and starships, and then use the categories special page to tweak the structure as it gets added to? There hasnt been any work on suggestions for categories in two months, maybe pushing forward and starting might give us momentum to get the larger structure organized? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 18:47, 7 Dec 2004 (CET)

I strongly recommend to restrict it to a field test first, when we introduced the categories in MA/de we noticed quite a lot do not make sense and must be moved. Also on a side notice, when looking at the suggested categories I saw they are all in plural, again something which makes no sense. -- Kobi 19:18, 7 Dec 2004 (CET)

[edit] Singular vs. Plural category titles

Copied from somewhere else on this page:

Wikipedia uses both singular (to list "topics relating to", similar to "see also" sections) and plural category titles (to list "instances of", a.k.a. "list categories") - in our case "Planets" would be a list of all planets (but nothing else), while "Planet" could contain articles like planetary classification (but probably wouldn't link to each and every planet). We may choose a different naming convention, of course, but I think it makes sense if we are allowing "list categories" to exist. -- Cid Highwind 20:26, 2004 Dec 25 (CET)

We should come to an agreement here, soon - preferably before the first single categories suggested above are created. I like the convention of having plural titles for lists and singular titles for "related topics" and would like to see this implemented on MA as well. Does someone disagree? -- Cid Highwind 20:28, 2004 Dec 28 (CET)

I don't. I also agree that we should 'get a move on'. I haven't been participating in much of these discussions (I still had DNS troubles at the time). I think we need one big final election in the near future, and stick to it. I think we just have to come to some form of compromise. -- Harry 14:08, 30 Dec 2004 (CET)

I don't think "one big final election" is appropriate regarding categories (or even possible - we don't even know which general structure should be the result; it surely isn't a single tree, for example). By making one small step at a time, a consensus seems to be much easier to achieve. We can also use those first categories to test the usefulness of further categories or category structures.

Regarding the original topic: Any further comments regarding plural categories? Anyone? :) -- Cid Highwind 14:48, 2004 Dec 30 (CET)

[edit] Reminder - no new categories, please

I will answer to the discussion above later (when I have the time), but meanwhile... Could you please stop creating new categories and adding too many articles to the already existing ones? This discussion was started explicitly to come to an agreement before categories are created - let's just keep that in mind. The existing ones (Performers,TOS performers, TS1P, TS2P, TS3P) should be enough for testing purposes, and I also see some minor problems with them already. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 09:47, 21 Dec 2004 (CET)

Categories appear to require a level of user consensus that seems unlikely to occur. I have come to wonder if they're even a good idea... -- Balok 00:36, 22 Dec 2004 (CET)

Categories don't really need this level of consensus, but that’s the way it seems to be going. They are my preferred way of navigating, so I hope things loosen up soon so. Drhaggis 03:21, 27 Jan 2005 (CET)

The problem is, that there is concern that if articles are categorized in a haphazard manner, it will lead to extensive recategorizing and resorting with a possible loss of our pre-existing list structure. Add to the the reluctance to proliferate unnecessary "List Categories," which may cause extemely unnecessary article edits to every categorized article, should the category be found to violate a naming convention, which is still under discussion (as per the non-existant category tree). For example, if an unnecessary category is created and enabled, and contains 100 articles, and we find that we have to remove the category for whatever reason, thats 200 article edits (once to add and once to remove) that we would have to perform. This is stressful to the database size and server.

If you have a preference for a category tree structure, or the naming conventions for such (for example a subdivision like the "Meta Trek" portion or the cartogrpahy suggestions), enabling that suggestion might get a group of categories approved en masse. Just something to consider.

Otherwise, I'm sure that categories that have unanimous support could be pushed through in a few days, perhaps? We could propose a change in that procedure now that we've seen success: If a single category suggestion matches (as a "sibling") to a previously approved category -- in a sense its naming convention, possible supercategory location or subcategory containment has already been approved. Essentially, we're just asking that a new category is approved here before being implemented -- i think its a sensible precaution. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 05:14, 27 Jan 2005 (CET)

[edit] Do we need to break this page up?

MediaWiki warned me about editing this page; that some browsers might have trouble because it is so large. I have had no difficulty (using Firefox 1.0), but it would be a shame to lock someone out inadvertently. -- Balok 02:02, 28 Dec 2004 (CET)

The page is quite large, but all different sections are still active, so I see no easy way to archive some of the content at the moment. I also think that most modern browsers are able to handle this page size, and "section editing" (is that feature activated by default, I don't know?) should solve the problem for anyone else. Some of the content should be archived later, of course. -- Cid Highwind 20:21, 2004 Dec 28 (CET)

Perhaps the sections could be moved to subpages? Dma 02:18, 2 Jan 2005 (CET)

Section editing was not enabled for me, so I'm going to guess it's not enabled by default. If you want to edit by section and it's not enabled (you don't see little 'Edit' links to the right of each heading level), then go to the 'Misc settings' page on your preferences. It should be obvious which box to check. -- Balok 01:32, 6 Jan 2005 (CET)

Since the single category voting mechanism is used more often now, I've moved the large tree-suggestion section to Memory Alpha talk:Category tree/Tree suggestions, and moved the voting section to the top. It should make it easier to find for Archivists. I really like this voting scheme, so perhaps we can make a dedicated page for it? Something like Memory Alpha:Votes for Categories? -- Harry 20:08, 14 Jan 2005 (CET)

Perhaps simply Memory Alpha:Category suggestions -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 20:04, 15 Mar 2005 (GMT)