Feminist SF Wiki talk:Categorization/Defaults

The basic issue is how to categorize things. Categories create automatically-generated alphabetical lists of things with that category label, and they fit into a hierarchical structure.

The question we have is how to categorize very basic categories for people. As demonstrated on Wikipedia, the numbers of categories for people can grow very rapidly and become less than useful, so it's better to take a cautious approach and be circumspect about creating new people-categories.

Here, we have a very large and growing category for "Writers". Most of the writers included are SF writers, but are just tagged writers. Writers of non-SF --such as, writers of feminist theory, journalists, and so on -- show up in the writers category, too. So one question might be:

• Should we have multiple categories for all the types of writing one might do, or the most significant which might be of interest here on the FSFwiki? Such as, SF writers; Feminist theory writers; Women's history writers; Essayists; etc.
• Or, if our "default" is "SF writers", how would we mark writers who do not write SF?
• We could categorize redundantly, but that adds to the total number of categories, making them less useful on an individual page, and harder to maintain.

What would be the most useful way to use the categories? --LQ 13:25, 20 March 2007 (PDT)

Rambling thoughts about categories follow in no particular order. I tend to visualise wiki categories as a web rather than a hierarchical tree. But if I ruled the wikiverse then I'd probably depopulate Category:Writers into subcategories because that would make it easier for people to find the subcategories on a single page (and my earlier adventure suggests that might be a practical idea to make it easier for people who don't use the system regularly). I'm used to visualising large webs of information so I don't find wiki categorisation intimidating. I'm quite tidy so categorising articles comes naturally to me but I'm not sure I use them much as a search or organisational tool. I have ethical problems with categorising (or listing) people by nationality or ethnicity but, on the other hand, I WANT to be able to find non-Americans and non-white people which is what those categories actually end up meaning (because it makes sense not to bother to categorise the "default" group in exactly the same way that it makes sense not to categorise English language writers or works even though that then appears to privilege English as a default language). And now I'm off to change Canadian Writers to Canadian writers and Indian Writers to Indian writers while they're still relatively unpopulated and it's an easy job and if those categories are deleted later anyway then I'll neither know nor care :-). Mostly I try not to have strong opinions on any subject which might encourage people to make me responsible for things. Contributor 17:54, 21 March 2007 (PDT)

I've depopulated Category:Canadian Writers in favour of Category:Canadian writers but I haven't (and won't) create the new category. I've depopulated Category:Indian Writers in favour of Category:Indian writers but I haven't (and won't) create the new category. The two old categories, Category:Canadian Writers and Category:Indian Writers are definitely deletable though. Contributor 18:09, 21 March 2007 (PDT)

Lastly, I note a problem with Category:Fantasy which contains no subcategories (such as Category:Works of fantasy etc) and is therefore either in need of discussion, subcategories or eventual deletion. Contributor 18:12, 21 March 2007 (PDT)

I had been actually trying to not diffuse the basic categories -- Category:Writers is a good example. I think that the mediawiki software at some point will include a combination feature, so you can find the intersection of categories; for instance, Writers and Directors; or Writers and 1958 births; or Writers and African-American people. Then, we wouldn't need combination categories (like "Indian writers"). And Category:Writers is a comprehensive index of everyone, which can be usefully combined with whatever other categories there are. --LQ 07:53, 22 March 2007 (PDT)

I know nothing about the software but that would be a useful development, yes. Are there Category:People, Category:People by ethnicity, and Category:People by nationality? I'll have to go and look. Contributor 14:16, 23 March 2007 (PDT)

But that's only for what I call "intersection categories" -- i.e., "writers of X nationality" or "writesr of X gender" or "writers of x ethnicity". It doesn't address the question of how specific we ought to be in terms of what kind of writer they are. What their genres (fantasy, SF, magical realism) and audiences (YA, lesbian, etc.) and formats (novelists, short story writers, essayists) and/or subject-areas (literary criticism, cultural studies, women's history) are. Which of these categories would be useful? And are there any "basic-level" categories, so that someone would get that category in addition to any other relevant categories? I'm particularly interested in the distinction between fiction writers and other kinds of writers (journalists, literary critics, etc.), and SF writers and other kinds of fiction writers. Should we have either "fiction writers" or "SF writers"? Or, since those are the majority categories, should we have their complementary categories, and what would those be called? --LQ 07:53, 22 March 2007 (PDT)

I can't remember this site's suggested definition of SF (spec fic or sci fic?). As long as the categories are reasonably intuitive and reasonably webbed together as sub categories then I'm all for throwing categories at articles and seeing what sticks (within reason). I don't know the limitations of the categorisation software though. I have a problem with the idea of a "lesbian audience" or work supposedly aimed at any group (because we all know adults read YA) unless that "aiming" is evident in the writing (as it supposedly is with YA) or the writer has specified their intended audience (which most writers are too canny to do for marketing reasons). Which is why I put the "lesbian-centric" comment on Category:Lesbian fiction when I created it, so it would be inclusive for fiction about/by/for lesbians without having to determine precisely which of those reasons is cause for an article's inclusion in the category (yes, there is method in my madness...). Contributor 14:16, 23 March 2007 (PDT)

On the ethnic and other identity issues -- lists are really better indexes than categories for this kind of thing, because you can reference, cite, explain, and do subheads and sorting as appropriate. (Lists let you handle grey areas better too.) And it avoids the potential for ghettoizing, which categories can create; even if there's a policy to redundantly categorize ("writers" and "african american writers") people will inadvertently just diffuse people and not redundantly categorize). And finally, to the extent that "categories" function as "labels", it may be offensive to label people as their identities -- lists can make it clearer that these are aspects or features of someone, and because it doesn't create a visual tag or label at the bottom of the page like a category does, it avoids that offensive tagging/labeling issue. --LQ 08:04, 22 March 2007 (PDT)

I understand what you're saying about the potential subtleties of lists but any list/categorisation which defines any group of people can subsequently be used for either positive or negative discrimination and, to be blunt, this wiki has already jumped the shark on this issue because there is a Category:Female writers but no Category:Male writers which implies that even feminists writing a feminist wiki think male is the default and female is a subcategory. I notice these things :-). I practice situation ethics so I can only take responsibility for my own actions and those actions which I therefore exemplify for other people to follow so... onwards to a specific situation... I preferred to name Malorie Blackman's ethnic identity in the categories rather than in her biography because she has expressed complex opinions on how she believes her ethnic identity effects her writing (and her writing is the part of her I'm primarily interested in) and I didn't want to overtly label her. I've since changed my mind about this and have altered her Wikipedia article to quote one of her own statements about herself as a "black woman writer". I tend to use the descriptive words which people use about themselves. In Blackman's case she says "black British" or "Black British" which, in Britain, has been the preferred self-identification for most Britons of Afro-Carribean or African origin for at least 30 years. It's an uncontroversial self-description even though it technically excludes black people born in Northern Ireland ::shrugs::. But perhaps (per the discussion above) I should have categorised her as Category:Black British people and hoped for new wikisoftware :-). I have to trust that other editors exhibit similar good faith in categorising people. Contributor 14:16, 23 March 2007 (PDT)

From a purely personal point of view I have problems with lists because I'm dyslexic and trying to read long lists in some formats makes me feel literally dizzy and nauseated so I have an inbuilt bias against lists and in favour of categories (other dyslexics will have different experiences). Contributor 14:16, 23 March 2007 (PDT)

Quick response - Actually I did have Category:Male x but started deleting all the gender categories and tags, and got thru male first ... then decided would be better to have discussion on the whole issue. So there is definitely no consistency in categorizing right now, but the gender thing is not because the default is male ... More on other stuff later after I've had more time to process. --LQ 19:14, 23 March 2007 (PDT)

Aha! Things become clearer. Slow thoughful responses are fine by me. :-) New issue: I tend to stick to wikipedia style indentation on talk pages, i.e. if I start as two indents then I remain at two indents as the conversation progresses, or would you prefer to read ever increasing diagonal indents because there are fewer people here so we won't reach the right hand margin too quickly? Contributor 10:52, 26 March 2007 (PDT)

I tend to want messier information, so while I see the value in structuring Categories, I still long for free tagging. I think we should have categories explicitly spelled out, named, because then the information is more portable to other areas. More categories is fine and I'm also okay with redundant categories. I'm facing the same issues as I try to outline a women writers wiki and whether I want to say "latin american writers" and then "uruguayan writers." I had started without identifying gender (i.e. assuming the default is that all people are women...) But now I think I might id people as women (as most if not all will be) in case I ever want to move the information somewhere else. If you have the tag or category, you can change it later. But adding it back in is laborious. So I'd say don't delete gender tags!--Liz Henry 17:29, 24 March 2007 (PDT)