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Wikipedia talk:Category schemes

How about about sorting the pages by most frequently visited? (if that's not already possible) ---

Why not include a page with an alphabetical listing of all Wikipedia articles? This could be broken into subcategories, with each subcategory indexing a maximum number of articles (say 100). To wit:

Aa-Ab | Ac-Ad | Ae-Af | . . .

Ba-Bb | Bc-Bd | Be-Bf | . . .

Ca-Cb | Cc-Cd | Ce-Cf | . . .

. . .

Or has this already been done?

--NetEsq

It would be impossible to keep this up manually. Biographical listing probably only has half of the biographies in Wikipedia. However, you could put in a feature request for a new special:Allpages in which you could select the first letter(s) of the article. That'd be pretty cool. DanKeshet

The underlying technology of Wikipedia seems to be it's short-coming. The ideal system makes use of XML and some sort of semantic schema. This way, a system could generate alternative knowledge representations based upon the users perspective. One can conceive of a particular field of knowledge as their target knowledge, i.e., their bull's eye. Moving away from their field within concentric rings would be fields of knowledge that relate to the target knowledge. Consider this as a cross section of a tree trunk, with concentric tree rings as related fields.

-- Pierre Johnson

I just had an interesting idea for an alternate category scheme. Right now, the main page has things organized by discipline. Now, a discipline is an area of study, and since humans study most everything, it makes sense that a list of disciplines would result in a list of starting-pages to most everything.

But we could, in addition (in an alternative "official category scheme" have the names of things themselves listed--of course, the most general of them. So, rather than Astronomy, we'd have space or the universe[?] or something like that. Rather than Philosophy, we would have being, goodness, knowledge, and a number of other basic topics studied by philosophy. Etc.

One interesting consideration about this idea is that, as in the case of philosophy, very many (perhaps all) disciplines cannot really be regarded as the study of just one thing--i.e., probably, for no discipline there is no one general category, C, such that the subject studied by that discipline is accurate and exhaustively described as 'the study of C'. Therefore, Wikipedia arranged by topic would have to include many more entry points than the present HomePage does, in order to be (more or less directly) connected to the same material that the top-level discipline articles connect to.

This consideration was inspired in part by an article Nupedia's Zoology editor wrote about Zoology. I replied that it seemed to be a really wonderful article about animals, and that we ought to rename the article "Animal." She agreed. A different article, about the study of animals, will be written about Zoology. This then raised the question as to what the top-level article should be for Nupedia: "Animal" or "Zoology"?

Of course, the issue arises here on Wikipedia as well.

--Larry Sanger

I think it wouldn't be that bad to add it as an alternate scheme, but I wouldn't rework the whole thing to use it. Disciplines represent a "natural" (at least among the well-educated segments of our society) way of looking at things; its just a fact that human knowledge is divided up that way. Having Wikipedia structured roughly along those lines helps people find things and to know where to put things.

On the other hand, the point about Animal vs. Zoology I think is good: "zoology" includes not just the object of study, but the people who study it, the history of the study, failed ideas, untested hypothesises; while "animal" is just the object of study. -- Simon J Kissane

Older discussion (probably needs refactoring)

As an example I've put Wikipedia pages into Nupedia's category scheme on the Category Schemes[?] page. A short history of this, then. The Nupedia category scheme is really intended to be a way to organize review groups, not necessarily subject areas (i.e., it's intended to organize people, not content); but, as it turns out, it is also not a bad way to organize subject areas as well.

I devised the category scheme very roughly according to the way universities divide up academic departments. I tried, above all, to be exhaustive; if there is some area of human knowledge that cannot be placed in this category scheme, I'd like to know. The supercategories ("FoundationalDisciplines," " NaturalSciences," etc.) are all reasonably coherent concepts, and in most cases it's clear enough that a category definitely belongs in one supercategory rather than another.

On the whole, I think that as a category scheme it is a lot more coherent than, say, the Dewey Decimal System or the LibraryOfCongressClassificationScheme. But of course others may differ. Feel free to devise your own category scheme and place it on the CategorySchemes page! -- Larry Sanger

I'm sorry, but the current organizational scheme that's been used on the homepage just makes me cringe every time I look at it. It seems as if there's no sense - that they're merely random points into the database. I tried to provide a simple three-grouping system to help at least organize it a little, but it appears to have been reverted out. There are few clues as to how to fit new topics into the organizational scheme... How can you tell if some technical topic belongs in TechnologY rather than ScienCe? ArtsAndEntertainment? is an extremely broad subject area; CountriesOfTheWorld extremely specific... -- BryceSorryAndConfusedHarrington

Science includes the principles behind things, but technology includes their uses. A lot of topics will straddle the two, but for a top-level classification I don't think there's a problem. I do agree, though, that there are way to many top-level nodes. Off the top of my head, I would propose a different system:

Understanding the way the world works - PhiloSophy, MathematicsAndStatistics, NaturalSciences Understanding what's actually in it - BiologicalSciences (?), HiStory, GeoGraphy Making stuff for practical use - TechnologY Making stuff for its own ends - ArtsAndEntertainment

The point of having a computerized encyclopedia is not to face some of the traditionnal dilemma of the Editor-In-Chief: meeting the deadline, having a fixed list of articles, publishing a fixed work, having only one table of contents.

I think that apart from quite rational CategorySchemes we should encourage many apparently non-sensical categorizations and make them available through a variant of the CategorySchemes and/or of the PatentNonsense page, like this one:

Things written by BryceHarrington
Things having kept a wEiRDcAPITALIZATion? in wikiwiki
Things whose name is badly spelt by most
Things whose shape or color has a cute name in shwahili
Birds that cannot fly
Subjects alluded to in more than two of the above categories
People not wanting to be classified as things
Objects not wanting to be called by any other name
Objects that can be thrown at someone you despise
Savoir-vivre manuals
Mirrors, Queens and Rabbits
Miscelleaneous and Dinosaurs

--OprgaG

As you can see, I've been tweaking our HomePage category scheme. It probably needs further tweaking, if we're going to follow a nonredundancy rule; e.g., countries of the world is a subcategory of geography. This is something we should perhaps discuss. LMS

Perhaps AstroNomer could explain why Planetary Sciences should be distinguished from Astronomy? For simplicity, I propose to continue regarding PS as a branch of Astronomy. We could, for example, regard Oceanography? as a separate science from Earth Sciences, but again, simplicity seems to recommend that we keep relatively few broadly-characterized categories. Disagree? --LMS

In some Universities in the US, there are Planetary Sciences departments separate from the astronomy departments, and, though they use some of the techniques of astronomy, they also are able to "go there" and observe directly (trips to the moon, unmanned mission to Mars and other planets, the recent landing in an asteroid). They study things as the geology of planets, or the meteorology of others...In a way, I'd say that earth sciences[?] is branch of Planetary Sciences, more than P.S. is a branch of astronomy. There are even some (I hope few) planetary scientists than get offended is someone called them astronomers...

All that said, it is possible than putting it at the top of the hierarchy was a bit extreme, and I'm not moving it back till some pl. scientists joins the wiki and moves it back.

Also, I think there should be a link to Planetary Sciences from Earth sciences[?] -- AstroNomer

The Dewey Decimal System is really more appropriate for a library of books, not an encyclopedia, but still gives an interesting (if old-fashioned!) perspective.

Or the Library of Congress catalogue scheme perhaps. I assume that it's Public Domain, being produced by the US government.

Love the new biography category, this will help us to tie things together really easily. sjc

Yep, I like it too! Good idea! --LMS

2001-06-01

Hello ! Are new contributions to be posted at the top or bottom of the page? I'd like to propose a TopicMaps approach for the general structure. That is basically a subject-centered non-hierarchical concept, so we won't have to bother much what is top and what is down. And it's very close to the wiki growth concept. The distinction pointed below between concepts, themes, classes or categories(also called universals) and individual objects like you and me and Van Gogh's "Les Tournesols" could lead to something different of the usual encyclopaedias structure.

BernardVatant (will try to give some attention to the French section)

14 Sept. 2001 What do people think about the category scheme of the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org/). It is the basis that many of the large commercial web directories work from, and so is familiar to many people. --Sunset

I really like the ODP category scheme (it seems to be very carefully worked out), but I think there's a fundamental difference between a category scheme for a set of web links and one for an encyclopedia. --LMS

I guess this answers an earlier question from BernardVatant: New posts will be added at the bottom of the page. :) - Sunset

Right, sometimes I think it's simpler to do rather than to say. :-) --LMS

Add your category scheme below!

Let's discuss the different category schemes on Talk

A three-part category scheme attributed to Jefferson:

Memory : Countries of the World -- History -- Language -- Quotes[?] -- Religion -- United States
Reason : HumanComputerInteraction -- Mathematics and Statistics -- Philosophy -- Politics -- Science -- Technology
Imagination : Architecture -- Arts and Entertainment -- Dance -- Literature -- Music -- Recreation -- Sports

Found while perusing the Library of Congress website: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/

Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library became the core of the Library of Congress, arranged his books into three types of knowledge, corresponding to Francis Bacon's three faculties of the mind: Memory (History), Reason (Philosophy), and Imagination (Fine Arts).

JoshuaGrosse says: Off the top of my head, I would propose a different system:

Understanding the way the world works - Philosophy, Mathematics and Statistics[?], Natural Sciences

Understanding what's actually in it - Biology, History, Geography

Making stuff for practical use - Technology

Making stuff for its own ends - Arts and Entertainment,Mathematics

We all know the familiar dot classification design of the Usenet.

alt.activism
alt.activism.ecology
alt.arts.origami
...
biz.general
biz.healthcare
...
comp.databases
comp.databases.adabas
comp.lang.c
comp.lang.c++
...
comp.programming
comp.sys.arm
comp.sys.atari
comp.sys.att
...
rec.arts.origami
rec.arts.puppetry
...
sci.anthropology
sci.archaeology

why not figure out a similar navigation system ?
Let's look at a proposed HomePage :

history.* (time) -> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/history_category
world.* (physical world - geography) -> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/world_category
computers.* (computer related) -> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/computer_category
human.* (physical humans, not their mind) -> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/man_category
mind.* (works about man's mind) -> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/mind_category
science.* (empirical knowledge) http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/
language.* (???) http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/
anima.* (living world around man) http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/
culture.* (culture itself and sociology) http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/
rec.* (recreation) http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/
and more ? It is open for discussion

And again on http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/history_category page that is labeled "history.*"

history.world_war_1.* http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/ww2_category
history.world_war_2.* http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/ww1_category
history.roman_empire.* http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/roman_empire_category

and so on...

I think it would be great fun for all of us Wikipedians if such or similar system could be implemented in the inner workings of Wikipedia software.
Automatic links feature of Wiki is a revolutionary achievment but wiki was never designed to cater for projects of such magnitude and complexity especially where good classification and navigation is crucial.
I wonder if TopicMaps is a viable option to solve classification and navigation problems (in the future).
Alternatively maybe beside Page_A.db Page_A.lck there should be a Page_A.cls files holding classification info. Just a thought.

 --Kpjas

I have installed another slightly different scheme in the German version of the wikipedia which is I think a compromise between the standard version and new ones. My intention was to shift the standard somewhat from the purely scientific world view. Three main parts stress this view. Others have or might have a different world view or world feeling. This is even symbolized in the use of some words. Although the german homepage now more looks like a Portal I find this more appropriate. Which should NOT be misinterpreted by anybody to shift the content which should remain being encyclopedic (objective rsp. encompassing different views).

Others should find alternate schemes or portals direct from the entry of wikipedia.

Another scheme is functionally different. I have tried to make something more suitable for direct search. So consecutive pages will supply something if someone knows he searches for a person. ..

--StefanRybo

Above text moved from main article, as discussions were no longer very active Enchanter

Shouldn't wikipedia have a category for International Relations, near or inside the Political Science category? In my opinion, International Relations, even being a category that is related to many other already existing ones, like economy, law and political science, it deserves a category on its own. Terms like Globalization, Trading Blocs, International Law, International Organizations, WTO, International Regimes, Soft Laws, should be in it's own category, too.
What do you think?
The point is, I am an International Relations student myself, and, as a glad user of the pedia, I miss this category.
Thanks
Forgive me if I'm asking something lame - I am just a newbie here... p.s.: As i can see, there's a sub category in the Library of the Congress - JZ. BTW, I am willing to make that term - International Relations.<br.

Thanks. User:Yves Marques Teixeira

How about if you create a page International relations and link to it from political science? Several of the topics at the end of the political science article would fall under International relations. AxelBoldt 00:33 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC)

Ok, i'll do it. Yves Marques Teixeira Time (How do I add the current date/time ?)

How about cross-referencing to Wiktionary? - Brettz9[?]

The main page's "About our category schemes" would be, I think, more appropriately labeled "Other Category Schemes" (or at least make "Other Category Schemes" one accessible option). Brettz9 02:18 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

The purpose of this would be to show that there were in fact other category schemes besides the by topic scheme on the main page - Brettz9 02:21 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

I personally have always endorsed Melvil Dewey's decimal system. I don't know of any actual real reason not to use it, other than its "non-wiki"ness. Even if it was designed for paper, it's useful; it and Library of Congress classification- user:zanimum

We need tutorials. For instance, it would be almost impossible to learn any mathematics by reading the mathematics pages. There should be structured and incremental courses with exercises for the various subjects. Essentially some form of 'guidance' for knowledge acquisition. Perhaps this could be a separate project codependant w/wikipedia?

Kevin Baas -2003.03.14

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