Pages To Categorize Discussion

Update 20040913

Update 20050203

I believe that what you're trying to do is fundamentally wrong. You appear to be trying to categorize every page on the wiki. I have said several times why I believe this is misguided.

There are those who believe that the wiki needs more structure and are willing to spend their time and effort to do it. When pages don't have sensible categories then a meaningful one is applied to it. Thus far their are over 300 categories and undoubtedly we will end up with scores more. Those who apply categories have said they are not attempting to impose anything on anyone. They feel that those who don't like the category system don't have to use it.

I can't say I'm super excited about this categorization project, but I'm willing to go to the pages that look like someone's name and stick CategoryHomePage, CategoryPerson, or CategoryAuthor on them. And if a page looks like a home page that's been abandoned for a while, I'll stick my usual Manjari, AreYouThere? OrphanPage, 2004-11-16, last edit 2001-06-19 form letter message on it. I don't want to fuss with any other pages in this big list. After all, I don't think a non-person page should be categorized unless it seems interesting, and often I'm too brain dead to figure out whether something strikes me as interesting. Plus, I'm not keen on inventing new categories. -- ElizabethWiethoff

I get the impression, that the whole ongoing SpottingPagesWithoutACategoryTag-business is to categorize every page on wiki. But PleasePleaseDontCategorizeEveryPageOnWiki. Though I have to admit, that quite some positive WikiGnome-work has been done in the last few days. -- GunnarZarncke

More is going on than Categorization. Some pages encountered are found to be DeletionCandidates or in need of some work. Others can have increased visibility by their connection to StartingPoints such as that of a well formed and appropriate category. -- DonaldNoyes

Wards NewRecentChanges has added a new way of looking at and dealing with RecentChanges.

You might try the min argument with it:

Agreed that it shows only larger changes, but it misses small acts of vandalism and includes reversions of large acts of vandalism.

I'm going to agree - I think the entire project of categories is a seriously flawed idea, PleasePleaseDontCategorizeEveryPageOnWiki, you're messing up the system. Hyperlinks work best when they link content to content... not some fake category someone happens to slap on it, let the data speak for itself, if it is truly related, it will already have links via WikiWords.

I think this project is going to bloat some of the existing categories and dilute their value. PleasePleaseDontCategorizeEveryPageOnWiki. -- ToddDerscheid?

There's a thing we need to have an understanding about called the WikiNow. Wiki is a place of transience. Things come and go; they wash up on Wiki's shore like so much flotsam and jetsam. Sometimes a beachcomber will spot something beautiful and mount it on the wall. However, as often as not it'll be washed back into the ocean and vanish without a trace forever. Wiki itself is like an attractive piece of driftwood - whilst not polished to a high sheen, and not cut to a regular shape, it has a certain beauty. This is WabiSabi. Wiki is less like New York, with a grid of streets, and more like a rainforest. It is organic. It has PiecemealGrowth and the QualityWithoutaName. Attempts to impose order, rigor and logic on Wiki, however well-intentioned they may be, are destined to cause an uneasiness in this community.

Some questions:

Does the librarian mutilate a book by adding its category on it?

It's really very simple: the point you are failing to grasp is that this is not a library, the pages are not books and no one need be appointed librarian.

While you may be striving for completion and perfection, you seem not to understand that sometimes these are not appropriate, not attainable, and sometimes even the struggle for them is misplaced.

In this place, all should be willing to learn. While most people are tolerated here, some of us find it very frustrating when non-programmers, come to this, a forum designed for programmers, and insist on applying their ideas and standards on us.

We will continue to tolerate what we consider as misplaced, misguided and misapplied enthusiasm, and gradually tidy up the mess afterwards. Perhaps there are some gems that will remain afterwards - of those you should be proud.

WardsWiki is a work in progress as are the pages defining Categories, much more likely to be improved when comments contain suggestions for improvement, with hints as to what may be done to make the page complete, its maker having started with what might be incomplete and not well organized. Time will tell if the page will eventually become well formed and categorized. -- DonaldNoyes

The situation, Monday 13 December 2004

For those of you who are worried that WardsWiki will suddenly be Categorized, don't. It is a huge task and at the present rate of categorization and the number involved in it, it will take at least 2 and 1/2 years for the job to be completed. That is unless the community feels it is something to be done, and many more are added to the few presently involved. Two or three people will not make a very big dent in the nearly 16000 pages which have no categorization, and it is doubtful if many more than that will have the stick-to-it nature or the spare time to continually involve themselves in it.

Navigation of over half of the Wiki will continue via the organization pages like RoadMaps and RecentChanges. It is much like a library with one half of its books stacked on tables, only one half of them shelved and categorized in the card index. Some useful stuff is on the table, some of it linked directly from another page, and some not. -- DonaldNoyes

But... Is categorizing wiki a good thing? Categorizing can stifle creative thinking and authorship, and it can also lose things too when those who categorize delete what they can't categorize or fail to understand. PleasePleaseDontCategorizeEveryPageOnWiki

Donald, the PagesToCategorize* pages have undermined the utility both of the OrphanWikiPages script and of BackLinks. Possible solutions:

-- IanOsgood

CategoryWikiMaintenance CategoryDiscussion CategoryAutoIgnore

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