Disputatio Vicipaediae:De categoriis/Tabularium 1

Disputationes antiquae Hoc est tabularium antiquarum disputationum. Non est recensendum. Sententiae hic collectae inter dies 25 Maii 2006 et 15 Iulii 2012 scriptae sunt.

Categoria:Auctores versus Categoria:Scriptores

You have marked Categoria:Auctores for deletion and I believe you have reasons why you think we should not use Categoria:Auctores. In this case it is not obvious to me why it should not be used. Even if we had discussed the reasons anywhere, this would not keep people from creating it again. This is the reason why I am generally looking for other solutions than deleting something. It's a similar discussion as I had about {{move ad victionarium}} with Ioshus Rocchio. Alternatives which cross my mind, depending on the reasons:

• a REDIRECT to Categoria:Auctores
• a template saying that this is an unwanted category and categorizing the category below Categoria:Unwanted categories
• a REDIRECT to Categoria:Scriptores and adding a remark there, saying that Categoria:Scriptores is the preferred name for Categoria:Auctores
• etc.

Maybe the categorization pages should keep some hints for categorizing, I mean: what should go into that category and what not.

What do you think?

BTW ... shouldn't we better discuss this on the talk page of Vicipaedia:Categoria?

--Roland2 06:31, 25 Maii 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the special aspects at hand: I could not identify any difference in meaning between Categoria:Auctores and Categoria:Scriptores. I thus believed that this is a case of unwanted duplication, where some articles end up in one category and others in another category, while in fact all those articles should go into one common category.

I do not prefer any one of the two category names over the other. The only reason why I chose to mark Categoria:Auctores (and not Categoria:Scriptores) for deletion is that the former had only one entry while the latter currently has 30 entries and six subcategories.

Alternative: If one understands auctor in a broader sense, one might argue that Categoria:Auctores should be a supercategory for Categoria:Scriptores, Categoria:Pictores, Categoria:Compositores and possibly also Categoria:Artifices.

Concerning the general aspects at stake: I would prefer deletion of any “unwanted” category over any other solution for the very simple reason of red links versus blue links: If an article is added to a non-existing category, everyone gets a clear visual indication (a red category link) that something is wrong here. If, however, there is any content to a category page (a redirect [are redirects between categories technically possible at all?] or a template saying this is an unwanted category), category links will show up in blue and the article will definitely not show up in the desired category.

In my view, the more meaningful and the more systematic our hierarchy of categories (and its documentation on Vicipaedia:Categoria) is, the easier it will be to place articles in the correct categories.

How to “keep people from creating” unwanted articles/categories:

1. put those on your watchlist (it is possible to watch non-existing pages) and you will see them when they are created
2. create a page (a subpage of your user page or a page in the Vicipaedia namespace) with links to the unwanted pages and you will see when a red link turns blue.

Greetings, --UV 13:08, 25 Maii 2006 (UTC)

Ok, it really seems to be better to delete unwanted categories.

Concerning Categoria:Auctores versus Categoria:Scriptores: I am not sure. I'd follow the definition of Auctor in de:Autor, so Scriptor might be a synonym of Auctor or part of it. Maybe it would help if we had an article Auctor or Scriptor where this question could be clarified. Alternatively we could put a remark on the category page. For me, Scriptor is easier to use. BTW, shouldn't Categoria:Poetae be part of Categoria:Scriptores? --Roland2 13:49, 25 Maii 2006 (UTC)

Made Categoria:Poetae a subcategory of Categoria:Scriptores. --UV 18:14, 25 Maii 2006 (UTC)

Category names (proposal)

The actual situation is: Category names are generally in plural, category names in singular are the exceptions. (There are Wikipedias which do it just the opposite way.) --Roland2 21:14, 23 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

No objection. --UV 21:42, 23 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

Generally plural, with obvious exceptions... like Categoria:Italia, not Categoria:Italiae...--Ioshus Rocchio 13:34, 24 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

Supercategories (proposal)

An article should not be categorized in Supercategories. "Germania" is a supercategory of "Urbes Germaniae" (Terra -> Europa -> Germania -> Urbes Germaniae). "Urbes Europaeae" is another supercategory of "Urbes Germaniae". The category (!) "Urbes Germaniae" should be categorized in "Urbes Europaeae", "Germania" etc. but not in "Europa" or "Urbes". "Caesar" should be categorized in "Imperatores Romani", "Viri militares", ... maybe "Calendar" etc. but not in "Homines". --Roland2 21:14, 23 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

Strong support. --UV 21:42, 23 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

Rol, can you just explain your reasoning for people here who might know less about the subject than you?--Ioshus Rocchio 13:35, 24 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

Ok, these receipe will bring up the same result: How to categorize an article?

• Step 1: Be as specific as possible: Categoria:Poetae is better than Categoria:Homines, Categoria:Vindobona is better than Categoria:Austria, Categoria:Urbes Germaniae is better than Categoria:Urbes.
• Step 2: Choose a category for each aspect: Leonardus Vincius is in Categoria:Italia | Categoria:Artifices | Categoria:Architecti | Categoria:Mathematici | Categoria:Inventores.
• Step 3: Then remove the "supercategories". A category is a supercategory if it is a parent or parent-of-parent or parent-of-parent-of-parent or ... category of a specific category. The article Alabama should be in Categoria:Alabama but not in Categoria:Civitates Americae Unitae because this is a supercategory of Categoria:Alabama. This avoids redundancy.

The advantages:

• If we had 50 articles in Categoria:Poetae we could move Categoria:Poetae from "Homines" to "Artifices" without touching these 50 articles.
• If we had 50 articles in Categoria:Urbes Germaniae and we put just Categoria:Urbes Germaniae into "Germania" and "Urbes Europaeae" we had indirectly all of these 50 articles in both "Germania" and "Urbes Europaeae". There is no need to put the Categoria:Germania into these 50 articles. — If you need a new category, just create it. ;-)
• In short: it is better maintainable.

--Roland2 16:01, 24 Iunii 2006 (UTC)

About Categoria:Homines and Categoria:Biographia

In the last few days, people seem to have been unsure where to use Categoria:Homines directly and where to use Categoria:Biographia.

For the reasons which have already been discussed above, I would strongly advocate to add persons to specific categories only and not to any supercategory of the category/categories chosen. That is to say: Once one has chosen Categoria:Scriptores Romani Antiqui, do not add your article to Categoria:Scriptores nor to Categoria:Homines. Categoria:Homines should really be a "fallback" category only, in case one does not have any appropriate subcategory at hand.

Regarding Categoria:Biographia as it seems to be used at present, this category seems quite redundant to me. If we added every article about a person to this category, then there would be no difference to Categoria:Homines. In my view, we should use this category not for persons, but for books about the life of a person (see e. g. en:Category:Biography, en:Category:Biographies, de:Kategorie:Biografie, fr:Catégorie:Biographie).

Any views on this? --UV 21:31, 22 Octobris 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. We should put Categoria:Biographia into Categoria:Libri maybe and put some usage information on page Categoria:Biographia. --Rolandus 12:56, 26 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

I agree for the category "homines" but not for Biography. If you are looking for a personage and you are not sure if he was a writer or a philosophe, it's important to have a supercategory where you can find all the persons --Massimo Macconi 16:43, 26 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure whether I have expressed my opinion in clear terms above. I think that

* Categoria:Biographia should not contain any article about a person. Instead, it should only contain articles about books about persons.

* persons should be added to one or more specific categories, but not to any supercategory thereof. If a person was a composer and a philosopher, the article should be added to both categories. If a person was a philosopher and a Roman philosopher, the article should be added to the latter category only (because "Roman philosopher" is a subcategory of "Philosopher"). A page should be added to a general category (like "Philosopher" or "Homines") only if there is/one does not know any appropriate subcategory (like "Roman philosopher").

What do you think about this? Greetings, --UV 19:06, 26 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

Homines/Biographia

Dear UV, I see that on the it.wiki the category "Biografie" is a general category which is about the life of a lot of persons and not only about books. From my point of view I believe that we must keep in line with the other wikipedias--Massimo Macconi 11:23, 27 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

Here the Italian wiki is rather lonesome ;-) it:Categoria:Biografie has no interwiki links. en:Category:Biographies has 6 interwiki links and there (as well as on de) it is said that the category is just for books. In theory, whenever a person is an artist or a writer, he/she should be in both categories. However, I know that in practice this is sometimes not true. But you could search in page Specialis:Allpages. I'd prefer UV's position, however, I personally could live with an exception if we really want this. In this case I would call this extra category "Omnes homines" maybe, not "Biographia". --Rolandus 00:02, 28 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea that Biographia should be about biographies, not be biographies themselves. But then, like the lonely it page, it should be Biographiae.--Ioshus ^(disp) 01:33, 28 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

Or perhaps Categoria:Vitae? --UV 00:28, 29 Novembris 2006 (UTC)

Without realising it, I have intruded into this discussion by creating Categoria:Libri biographici. It seemed a good idea at the time, as a parallel to Categoria:Libri historici etc. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:18, 17 Decembris 2006 (UTC)

No problem! Should consensus evolve about the "homines" and "biographia" problems in the sense that I have suggested, then we should decide which one of the three titles (Categoria:Biographiae or Categoria:Vitae or Categoria:Libri historici Categoria:Libri biographici - emendavi, recte, ut spero:Iovis Fulmen 17:51, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)) is most appropriate for articles about books about persons. Then, we should merge any remaining categories. Greetings, --UV 22:15, 17 Decembris 2006 (UTC)

Categoriae biographicae

De: "In categorias biographicas . . . oportet commentiones biographicas (i.e. de hominibus singulis), neque alias, inserere." Inter biographicos Ricardi Wagner commentarios, exempli gratia, erunt Feriae Baruthi, chorda Tristanensis, Gesamtkunstwerk, Ioannes de Bülow, Ludovicus II (rex Bavariae), 552 Sigelind, et Opera Ricardi Wagner. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:38, 15 Iulii 2012 (UTC)

Gratias tibi ago. Rectissime dicis. Est error non conceptús sed expressionis meae (nisi fallor). Rescribo.

Ut explicam: in verbis meis quae citas, loquor de categoriis biographicis i.e. quae sunt subcategorias categoriae Hominum. Commentationes quas enumeras e talibus categoriis excludendae sunt, sed pro certo sub categoria de homine singulo "Categoria:Ricardus Wagner" comprehendendae. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:06, 15 Iulii 2012 (UTC)

An nunc melius in pagina scripsi, nescio ... re vera difficile est tales res sine ambiguitate evolvere! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:21, 15 Iulii 2012 (UTC)