Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization/User categories

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[edit] Would you like some help?

Excellent start. Would you like some help, or would you prefer waiting for such collaboration after it's been moved to Wikipedia space? - jc37 21:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Help? Yes, please! :) I was planning on asking you, Horologium, VegaDark, Kbdank, et al. to share your thoughts after I'd brought it to a more complete state, so... Black Falcon (Talk) 22:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A thought

After looking this page over quite a bit, I think that this is probably better as a user category version of Wikipedia:Overcategorisation. Would you be opposed to this being moved to Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories? - jc37 16:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Not at all, if there is support for (or, at least, no opposition to) it. Black Falcon (Talk) 17:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, moved. Also merged a few things to Wikipedia:User categories. - jc37 00:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedians by interest

You wrote "This includes any grouping of users by interest in a subject – that is, interest in editing articles related to a certain topic".

If interest equals willingness to edit articles about a subject, then I have no specific interests.

If people have to categorize themselves by what they are willing to edit, then rename the categories to Category:Wikipedians who will edit subject. To make the category names shorter, drop "Wikipedians who will edit" in favor of Category:Editors of subject.

You won't need to keep many categories at that point. What would be the point of having categories relating to which schools users are attached to since not many schools have more than one article? The same will be true of the musical instrument user categories. The language categories could be deleted. If they edit another language Wikipedia, their user pages would be attached to the other language through the multilingual links on the left. The WikiProject categories could go, since those would basically be repeats of the main editor categories. Some categories would empty out rather quickly.

An article threshold would have to be established before a subject category for editors could be created. In my opinion there should be at least 21 articles before a category is created for the editors of those articles.

I wonder how many people have left Wikipedia because of the sterilization of these categories? I have heard of places like MySpace and Facebook but have no interest in them. I have a web site which I have put most of my interests on, but it is in the boondocks of the web. I use various forums, but those don't serve all of my needs. Wikipedia prior to the sterilization of these categories did serve my needs. I was able to find like minded people who I could chat with outside of Wikipedia. Getting rid of some of the purely social aspects of Wikipedia may not be a good idea. This used to be a place where I could get valuable information while being in a relaxed atmosphere. It seems that the new direction is to put everyone in metaphorical straight jackets. - LA @ 18:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no need to adopt an "all-or-nothing" approach. Attempting to utilise user categories for collaboration is always a probability game; however, we should distinguish between cases where the chances that a category will facilitate collaboration are virtually zero and those where they are slightly or significantly higher. There is no guarantee that the users in an interest category will actually want to collaborate on certain articles, but there's a chance, since "interest" often can and does imply "encyclopedic interest".
The utility of the language categories lies in the ability of users to translate; again, there's no guarantee that any user will actually agree to translate something, but it's possible. (Incidentally, one does not need to edit another-language Wikipedia in order to be able to help translation with the English Wikipedia. I can and have translated information from a few languages, yet only edit on en.wikipedia.) As for the musical instrument categories, I don't endorse their existence, but perhaps they can be useful in procuring free audio samples.
I do not know whether anyone has left Wikipedia because his/her favourite user category was deleted, but I do know of a few who have left (or gone on extended wikibreak) because of the perceived MySpace-isation of Wikipedia (someone even posted on WP:AN/I not too long ago). One thing I note from the way your comment is written is that you view the deletion of user categories to be an inherently bad thing, and it seems to me that, to a certain extent, you seek to preserve user categories for the sake of preservation itself. For me, user categorisation is a means to an end, not an end in itself; the existence of thousands of random categories unrelated to encyclopedic collaboration undermines the utility of user categories as collaborative tools. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I am not categorically against the deletion of user categories. I think that there was once a user category for editors who edited while barefoot. That is a bit too fluffy for me, so I wouldn't object to its deletion if it were ever recreated.
Using Category:Wikipedians who play Dungeons & Dragons as an example of why fan-ish categories can be useful, let's say that someone is looking through recent changes and sees an article related to Dungeons & Dragons that seems to have been vandalized but isn't sure. Instead of reverting the article, this editor looks for someone who knows the game by going to the category above, choosing a user at random (me), and leaving a message on my talk page asking for a my opinion before reversion.
I go to the article and look at the changes. I find that it was vandalized by several people who edited it. The previous editor of the article went through it and replaced all of the long forms of abbreviations with the abbreviations. I know what the abbreviations mean but know that not everyone does. I go through the history and see that this has been going on for a while. Since there were some good edits between the bad, it can't be reverted back too far. So, I can go into the article and expand all of the abbreviations and write up brief inline definitions of what the terms mean.
If I had been in a category which just stated interest, the first editor would not know which users know the game through playing and which users haven't a clue but want to learn.
I hope all of that made sense. - LA @ 14:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
It did, and I appreciate the detailed example. I diagree on one point, though: someone who plays a game is not necessarily more knowledgeable about it than someone who has an interest in a game (e.g. consider the case of new players). Moreover, I think that the knowledge likely to be possessed by players of a game is different from the knowledge likely to be possessed by those interested in a game. Players of a game could be expected to know about the game itself, whereas those interested in a game may know about the real-world significance of the game (e.g. reception, sales).
My concern with "who play" categories is that they often exist as a user page notice only, where a user has no desire, ability, or willingness to help to improve an article, even if solicited. Perhaps this reflects, to a certain extent, my personal situation. I have played many (card, board, and video) games, yet have little first-hand knowledge of them that would be useful for improving articles. On the other hand, I do have a substantial interest in topics related to Africa, despite the fact that I'm neither currently in or originally from the contintent.
Returning to the categories at hand (D&D and the other game categories), I will remain neutral on those in light of your example, except where there are other factors involved (e.g. if collaborative potential is limited to 1-2 articles). I still feel that an "interest" category would be more effective (and that, perhaps, deletion without prejudice to creating an interest category is a good option), but I can see your point. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with BF on the "desire, ability, or willingness to help" issue. I've always said a wikiproject is far superior to randomly asking people for help. People only join wikiprojects when they are interested in collaboration. People who join will usually watchlist the project, so anyone needing assistance can go to one place and ask for it, and is relatively assured of getting a response. Now compare that to randomly asking people for help because they are in a user category. There is not only no way to tell if they have the desire, ability, or willingness to help, but there is no way of knowing when they will get your request for help. You'd have to essentially spam everyone in the category to have a chance of getting a useful response, which will make you unpopular pretty quickly. Add that to the fact that most people are only in user categories because they have a userbox on their userpage. That's like asking me for help about automobile articles because my dealer put one of their stickers on my car. Finally, wikiprojects add a template to article and category talk pages. You immediately know where to go for help. As opposed to user categories, which are not advertised as a place to go for reference or assistance. Even if you knew about user categories, how long would it take to research a) whether or not a D&D user category even exists, b) figure out what is the exact name so you can find it? You are better off just doing the research yourself, you'll waste less time. --Kbdank71 16:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Media

In looking over the various "literature through various media" cats, it seems there is a "trend" or convention to delete individual titles, but to retain a series. "By genre" seems also to be retainable. As well, retaining, "by author" (books), or "by director" (film). People such as Aaron Spelling, Glen A. Larson, Garry Marshall, and Sherwood Schwartz, might also be good examples for television (should such categories ever be created).

I wonder if there is a way to "work this in", of if it might be "too specific" (even though I would guess that these consist of a rather large "bulk" of the categories). - jc37 17:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Links and examples

One thing that had (as I recall, unanimous) consensus at WP:OC, was to not have redlinks as examples, but to link the examples to the discussion resulting in the deletion. We should follow that example here. Any help doing this would be welcome : ) - jc37 19:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this what you had in mind? Black Falcon (Talk) 23:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. (Linking the examples turned out to be very effective at Wikipedia:Overcategorization.)
We should probably move the examples to the top of each section as well (matching OC's layout). - jc37 01:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe not. In most cases, you were rather effective in how you did the examples "case-by-case". I dunno. - jc37 01:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)