User talk:Hard Nut

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[edit] Rearranging Israeli Scientist Categories & Entries

Hello All,

It apears that the respectable Israeli Scientific Contribution as appear in Wikipedia, have been hampered, to an extent, by some disorganized categories, sub-categories, classes divisions, and entries.

Let us work together in putting this situation into order, by adhering to appropriate, well-organized, and well-maintained categories, sub-categories, classes and entries.

Kindly contribute to this cause by following these criteria, or by patiently waiting for that to be carried out by others, if you feel that you cannot figure out an appropriate contribution of your own.

--Hard Nut 16:36, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Israeli science categories

As you can see, I have nominated three categories you created (Israeli Science, Israeli Scientists and Israeli Scientists by Name) for deletion. I have done this because they are redundant with the categories we already have (Science and technology in Israel and Israeli scientists). Also, we tend not to use category titles like Category:X by name, since the noun (e.g. scientist, geologist, etc) already indicates that the category is about human beings, whose article titles carry their names. Anyway, good luck with improving wikipedia :) Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 19:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I've also nominated Category:American Scientists (redundant with Category:American scientists) and Category:Scientists by Nationality (redundant with Category:Scientists by nationality) for deletion. Another point is the use of stub templates on categories. We have templates like {{popcat}} ("please populate this category") for underpopulated categories. Stub templates are meant and used for small articles (stubs). Adding a stub template to a normal category means that the category becomes a subcategory of a stub category. This doesn't create irreparable chaos, it's not the end of the world, but it does put categories in parts of wikipedia where they don't belong. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 20:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

Also, some sub-index pages seem to not sort properly in their parent-index page. Perhaps you can drop me a few clues as to why that happened.

Which pages are you talking about? Do you mean to say that some categories do not end up where you intended to put them in the parent category?

Please note that when exploring Israeli Scientist bios, I was amazed at what seemed to be total disarray and random entry patterns, indices and sortings.

That indeed shouldn't be happening. Can you remember some of the articles and entries? I'll see what I can do to create some structure from the disarray.

In particular, the "by name" in parallel to, perhaps the by-discipline, and so on- systematically leading to a centralized article entry for elaboration - categorizing format is consistent with any single encyclopedia that I humbly had the opportunity to examine in my lifetime

The way wikipedia organizes the scientist categories would be as follows

  • Category:Israeli scientists
  • Category:Israeli geologists
  • Category:Israeli climatologists
  • Category:Israeli seismologists, etc.

In other words, in a category, the scientists are always sorted by name, so there is no need to add "by name" to the category title. When it comes to Israelis in certain scientific disciplines, they are put in categories for that discipline. Those discipline categories become subcategories of the scientist category. A good example of this is Category:American scientists. Daughters of that category are American anthropologists, American archaeologists, American astronomers, American biologists, American chemists, American computer scientists, American geographers, American geologists, American ichthyologists, American linguists, American meteorologists, American mineralogists, American paleontologists, American physicists and American science writers. So there is no need to add "by discipline" to the title, because the titles of the subcategories already show the disciplines. If my explanation raises more questions than it answers, please tell me.

I think it would be best if you would also leave your message at Category talk:Science or in one of the Village Pumps. I think you are better able to convey your opinion than I am, and the people over there are probably better able to help you than I am. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 20:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

I'm a bit busy in real life the next few days, so I don't have the time to fully respond to your reply. I'm afraid that'll have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday. There are probably two reasons why your category was deleted from the parent category. 1. We already have Category:Israeli scientists and Category:American scientists. Since wikipedia is case sensitive, a category in which the second word starts with a capital is another category than a category where the second word doesn't start with a capital. Having Category:American Scientists alongside Category:American scientists could potentially create or cause confusion. It'd be much clearer to use one name, and add all existing relevant articles to that category. That way, people who come across the category will know that the articles in that category are all that wikipedia has to offer on the subject. That way, they won't have to write articles on for instance scientists who already have an article. That saves a lot of time and energy that can be spent creating requested articles. 2. There are naming conventions for categories. What it boils down to, is that when we categorize people, we start with the adjective of the country (e.g. German, French, Dutch, Greek, Israeli, Canadian) and end with the plural of the subject, starting the plural with a minor letter. I hope this helps a bit. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 12:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)