Category talk:Terminology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems to me that an awful lot of the articles in the subcategories of this category don't actually belong here. For example, under Category:Martial arts terms are a lot of articles that are about martial arts moves, and not about the terms for those moves. Under Category:Nautical terms we've got things like anchor (which is about anchors as equipment, not about the name "anchor") and Navigable river, which doesn't go into any detail about how these rivers are named. Category:Star Trek terms even says right in the category text that it exists mainly to reduce the number of articles in the main Star Trek category, and the main Star Trek category has to include a note reminding people to check the "terms" subcategory if they're looking for something they can't find otherwise. It seems to me that most of these "terminology" articles are simply articles that have something vaguely to do with the subject of the category but which aren't easily categorizable elsewhere, rather than being about terminology itself. So, having gone through a discussion and getting started on cleaning up CategoryComputer terminology, I'm thinking I should push for a more general guideline. I've added one to the main Terminology category, and if nobody objects to it over coming weeks and months and years I'll try getting these subcategories to be a little more exclusive in what articles they take. Bryan 18:49, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment above: many "terms" categories simply do not belong on Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles are about the things terms describe, not the terms themselves (in general). Most articles categorized as "terms" simply belong in some other subcategory of their subject area, or a new subcategory needs to be created. --Srleffler 08:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, looks like it really has been years. Fortunately my watchlist has a better memory than me. How about we pick a subcategory for cleanup and start working on it? The martial arts ones still look ripe. Bryan Derksen 09:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I just did Category:Photography terms. That's it for me, I'm afraid. Busy few weeks ahead.--Srleffler 21:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

And I just did Category:Espionage terms, and a little work on medical and martial arts. I'll try to remember to keep coming back to this in future. There have been a few articles I've come across that really were about terminology, so a few of these categories may not wind up empty after cleanup is done. Bryan Derksen 10:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If there are only a few such articles, it's probably best just to move them up to the parent category and add Category:Terminology to the article. That allows the unneeded terminology subcategory to be deleted, and discourages future editors from arbitrarily categorizing articles as "terminology" articles.--Srleffler 00:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree and I'll probably do that when I get there, I just figure it'll be quite a while before I reach the point that those are the only articles left to clean up. :) Bryan Derksen 05:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)