Category talk:Writers

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Contents 1 General 2 Computer people 3 Cleanup 4 To Do 5 Users with Template:User writing

[edit] General

We seem to have both category:writers and category:authors...

Where? There don't seem to be any articles in that category. --ssd 22:26, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Ok, now I see it. Bleh, what a mess. Apparently the reasoning is that writer is a more generic and less elitist term than author. Personally, I don't care, but it's wrong to have both IMHO as the distinction is not that clear. --ssd 15:38, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Should we have individual writers in this catgory? Think about it in the long run: when we get close to having all writers categorised, category:Writers will be huge! We could have a separate writer index category, say category:All writers or category:Index of writers.--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo|Contact Me!]] 17:19, May 31, 2004 (UTC)

I think it would be better to break them up as is. I.e., writers by country, writers by genre, writers by type. If you want all writers, how about Writers:A ...Writers:Z. Too soon to do it yet, I think. according to Wikipedia:Categorization, if articles are in a subcategory, they shouldn't be in the parent category. For now, I think putting them in Category:Writers is useful until a subcategory is created they fit in. Or something like that. ya. --ssd 17:41, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. So I guess we empty category:Writers of all writers in the parent category unless they're not in a sub-category, in which case we put them in one. Alphabetical categories didn't occur to me... good idea.--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo|Contact Me!]] 18:24, May 31, 2004 (UTC)

I also notice that if you say e.g., [[Category:Writers|Last, First]] then it alphabetizes them correctly. ---ssd

[edit] Computer people

Should Bill Gates really be categorized as a writer? john k 05:09, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

More broadly, what's with all the computer people who have been categorized here? john k 19:04, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not sure specifically which people you are refering to, but every now and then a "computer person" does write a book... --ssd 22:18, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, but should people who've written computer textbooks, or what not, be included in Category:Writers? Is this category for anybody who's ever written anything for publication?

Examples: Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Guy L. Steele, Jr., Bruce Schneier, Richard Stallman, Rob Pike, Hans Moravec, Raymond Kurzweil, Brian Kernighan, Tim Berners-Lee, Fred Brooks, Dennis Ritchie, Donald Knuth, Eric S. Raymond.

Some of these do not even seem to have written books. (I haven't included the variety of science and technology journalists who are also listed here, because they surely count as writers). john k 22:32, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that most writers of textbooks don't have any considerable biography and what they write is completely impersonal to them. Bill Gates definitely should be categorised as a writer as his writing is always written in relation to Microsoft, so is autobiographical to some extent, and some probably read him just for that reason. Anyone have a suggestion of a better classification for these 'boring' writers?--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo (Talk)]] 23:11, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

Of the people on your list I recognize (except Bill Gates), I know them mostly because of what they have written! Some of them I didn't know anything about until I started reading their published works, or I read their books before I knew their name. If you want to make a category for technical writers or something like that, and move them to it, go for it! I would have done it a while ago, but I couldn't decide what to call the category. --ssd 05:16, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have created Category:Technology writers, and someone else already started Category:Science writers. I think the distinction between the two is clear; I have sorted your list above (thanks!!!) and several more I saw/thought of into these categories. --ssd 05:43, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't the page Scientific journalist also be merged with Category:Science writers, or do we reserve that page for those scientific journalist that haven't published a book yet? Peak Freak 11:23, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On reading the category description, I think there is probably a difference. When I created technology writer, I was finding scientists that just happened to have written books. I suspect scientific journalists are journalists that have bothered to learn enough science to write about it. There is a very big difference in credibility and level of writing there. Having said that, the two categories are close enough that I'm sure a few are in the wrong one. Both category descriptions probably need to be expanded if they are not merged. --ssd 01:18, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

There are too many articles in this category; time to subcategorize. -- Beland 14:09, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are more than enough sub-categories already: the work is shifting articles into them. So far I have cut the number of letters left to 15. --Henrygb 22:57, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are now just 16 articles listed, though only 4 of them should be here. Others should be moved to subcategories --Henrygb 14:02, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] To Do

Worthy to-do list moved from Category:authors

Add category tags to all authors so eventually the category system replaces the manually compiled lists as a more categorical system. Here are some subcategories to be made. Novelists, poets, playwrights and a few more can be broken down further by genre:

• academic writers
• biographers
• children's literature authors
• illustrators
• humorists
• journalists
• magazine writers
• military authors
• newspaper writers
• non-fiction authors
• novelists
• laywrights
• poets
• political authors
• religious authors
• science authors
• screenwriters
• self-help authors
• short story authors

(I did not originate the above; I found it in an HTML comment on Category:Writers. -- Beland 00:29, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC))

note that many of these subcategories exist, though often as writers rather than authors. --Henrygb 08:38, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Users with Template:User writing

Currently this category includes users who include {{user writing}} on their user pages. Shouldn't these be separated into a separate category to avoid self-reference, and to separate the encyclopedic content? KramarDanIkabu 03:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)