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)