Forum:CT:categories are currently innefficient

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:categories are currently innefficient
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The result of the debate was do not implement proposal. —MJ— War Room 07:28, October 6, 2013 (UTC)

ok so i have been using wookieepedia for quite a while now and never been motivated to contribute but i have been using it heavily recently as reference for an RP game i am planning to run and i have noticed something. categories are all over the place, they are supposed to be used as sort of an indexing tool, but the current policy governing them makes them pretty useless in that regard. What i mean is the policy to not put a page in a category if it is already in a sub category. An index like that should have a top down approach, with broad categories with a large number of articles that are further refined with subcategories. the current policy is a sort of bottom up approach were everything is separated into specific sub categories and anything that doesn't specifically fit is left in the parent category. this makes the index incredibly hard to use to find anything unless you know the specific subcategory you are looking for.

i propose a policy where any article that fits into a subcategory also is put into its parent category to make the an index that is easy and intuitive to use. yes this will make some categories with a very large number of entries but i don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. Also stricter guidelines on what constitutes a subcategory are needed, an article in a subcategory should conform to both the definition of the subcategory it is in and the parent category its subcategory is from so, for example starship components should not be a sub category of starships as a an activation cylinder isn't a spacefaring vessels too large to be a starfighter.--Valeros.balazar (talk) 06:19, September 29, 2013 (UTC)

Voting

Support

Oppose

  1. Absolutely not. That would result in incredibly overpopulated categories, and entirely counter-intuitive to the idea of subcategories. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 06:08, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  2. 1, I expect people to know how to sign their names before posting CTs, not as an afterthought. Learn the system before you try to change it. 2, This would make rearranging categories even more painful than it already is, and would make the bottom of every article look like a pile of gibberish. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 18:24, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  3. Things are going to get very messy very fast if this is done. It is not really needed either since people should know that anything in say, Category:X-wing models, also counts as an X-wing, Starfighter, and Spacecraft.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 18:27, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  4. ...and Vehicles and Transportation technology and Technology by type and Technology. 1358 (Talk) 18:31, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  5. Learn to use commas. IFYLOFD (Enter the Floydome) 18:38, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  6. I would be more worried about the lack of capital letters.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 18:54, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  7. It's really perfect as it is. Corellian PremierJedi symbolThe Force will be with you always 20:12, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  8. I wholly disagree. I can't remember any time where I've thought that our category system was in need of an update. If you are having a hard time finding a specific category, go to the main category and search for the respective sub-category. Also (with due respect to the author of the CT), as a grammar nazi/grammarian, I find this CT quite distasteful. :P —Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 20:23, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
  9. Everything that needs to be said has been said, so I'll spare you the repetition. —MJ— Training Room 00:55, September 30, 2013 (UTC)
  10. Just the sheer number of categories we would need to list on each article makes me oppose this. Supreme Emperor (talk) 01:09, September 30, 2013 (UTC)
  11. No, just no. And it's spelled "inefficient". <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 02:10, September 30, 2013 (UTC)
  12. I don't think that an idea made by someone who has "never been motivated to contribute" has any potential to be a good one. Commander Code-8 You lost the game! 11:30, September 30, 2013 (UTC)
  13. Per everyone. Green Tentacle (Talk) 12:37, September 30, 2013 (UTC)
  14. I'm a bit dismayed by some of the comments here; we should oppose the idea, not the contributor who made it or how they typed it. And that's what I'm doing: this is not a good idea, for reasons given by others. ~SavageBOB sig 12:31, October 2, 2013 (UTC)
  15. Per Green Tentacle ToRsO bOy (talk) 02:11, October 4, 2013 (UTC)
  16. Per Supreme Emperor, and especially per SavageBob. jSarek (talk) 07:43, October 5, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

please explain why an "overpopulated" category is a bad thing. if an article fits the definition for a category it should be in that category and subcategories should be used to further refine a category. its a much more intuitive indexing method that what is currently being used.--Valeros.balazar (talk) 06:18, September 29, 2013 (UTC)

  • Bro, do you even English? Also, it is not hard at all to find things in our category system. Just go to the main category and find the appropriate subcategory. It's not hard at all. I've done it a million times. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 01:08, October 2, 2013 (UTC)