Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Hierarchy

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Hierarchy page.

Contents

[edit] Changes log

The purpose of this log is to keep track of proposed changes to the 1.0 classification scheme made on the project page. As well as facillitating the discussion below, this is also intended to make it easier to implement proposed changes once consensus is reached.

(RV is short for Release Versions, and GA is short for Good Articles)

  1. Move RV "Theatre, film and television" from "Language and literature" to "Arts" Y Done
  2. Move RV "Geology, geophysics and minerology" from "Geography" to "Natural science"
  3. Rename RV "Geography" as "Geography and places", and split into "Geography" and "Places"
  4. Rename "History" as "History and warfare" (done at RV)
  5. Rename RV "Chemistry" as "Chemistry and materials science" Y Done
  6. Rename "Architecture" as "Architecture and architects"
  7. Move GA "Film" from "Social sciences and society" to "Arts" Y Done
  8. Move GA "Agriculture etc." from "Natural sciences" to "Everyday life" Y Done
  9. Split GA "Geography" into "Geography" and "Places" Y Done
  10. Update GA "Astronomy and physics" list Y Done

Last change: Walkerma (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of changes and other issues

[edit] Listing "Theatre, film and television" under "Arts" (1 and 7)

  • Support Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support as discussed at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Geometry guy 13:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. While this is clear for theatre and film, there is an ambiguity for television, which is also a medium, e.g., for journalism, and has a big footprint in "Social sciences and society", reflected in the GA choice. I am not sure what to do about this. From a GA perspective, the simplest thing would be to keep television separate in Socsci. A more logical approach is to separate the use of television as a creative art from its other uses. Geometry guy 22:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I've done this at GA now, but splitting television into drama and non-fiction. How does that breakdown look to others? Geometry guy 14:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Listing "Geology, geophysics and minerology" under "Natural science" (2)

  • Neutral Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Unsure, but in my view Geology/geophysics and Meteorology/atmospheric science should be listed together, either under a broadly based "Natural science" section, or under a broadly based "Geography and geosciences" section. At GA, they are currently listed under "Natural science", so this choice requires less work. However, the range of articles listed here suggests that the geography and geosciences approach may be more natural. Geometry guy 13:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting "Geography" into "Geography" and "Places" subtopics (3 and 9)

How would this work at RV? Geography without places would be a very small section. Do you mean "Geography and Places" at the top level and then have "Geography" and "Places" as subtopics of that? Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

That is exactly what I mean, and have clarified this The geography subtopic would be relatively small, but that is partly why I think it is a good idea to separate it, so that the geography doesn't get lost among the long lists of places. Geometry guy 13:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of history section: "History and warfare"? (4)

  • Weak support: This may seem like an odd combination in theory, but in practice it works well - much of human history seems to be about warfare... Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Version_0.5#History, the title is "History and war". A third alternative would be "History and conflict". The case for a name like this is: (a) this seems to be the best place to put all the articles on military history and tactics; (b) the name of the topic should reflect the content; (c) it is awkward to have a subtopic with the same name as the name of the topic. It is a sad observation, though, that much of human history is about conflict! Geometry guy 13:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming the chemistry subtopic "Chemistry and materials science" (5)

  • Weak support: I don't like lengthening, but this would be a helpful case Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak support. I agree that the case for the longer name is not particularly strong, but this is what is used at WP:GA#Natural sciences, so we either have to rename the GA or the RV title. Geometry guy 13:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should "Architecture" be renamed as "Architecture and architects"? (6)

  • Oppose: I think it's implied. We don't have "Arts and Artists" and "Science and Scientists"; it should be understood that you'll find an architect listed under his/her profession.
I agree with the principle, but this issue here is that currently the entries in this section include "Architecture", "Art" and "Artists", so it is unclear whether architects should be listed with "Architecture" or with "Artists". Indeed at WP:GA#Arts, the architects are listed with the artists. Possible alternatives include: merging "Artists" into "Art"; adding a separate entry for "Architects". Geometry guy 13:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, maybe I was too hasty - I see what you mean now. The GA organisation there seems odd, and I suspect it's probably historical. The next release version will have (we hope) around 30,000 articles once the bot gets going, and so we will almost certainly need to have separate subsections for buildings, for architectural terms and for architects (Consider that a section with 30 articles now might have 400 after the bot is finished- so we'll have to split a lot). We'll probably have lots of subsections of artists, too. Walkerma 02:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Given the discussion below, how about a seperate heading "Architects and designers"? Geometry guy 22:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
"Designers" would be too similar to "Design", being discussed below. I'd rather just merge "Artists" into the individual artistic disciplines. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
According to Walkerma, RV 0.7 is aiming for 30000 articles, so it seems sensible to me to separate the biographies from the other articles in most cases. The case at GA is less clear, but currently, artists and architects are listed together in a separate subtopic from the "art" and "architecture" subtopics. I think it would make sense to split them, and designers could easily join the architects. Also, novice GA nominators have been known to ask "where is the biography category" — another reason to separate people from their subjects, where appropriate. Geometry guy 22:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listing "Agriculture etc." under "Everyday life" (8)

  • Support Walkerma 05:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, but not yet sure exactly how to merge it with the other stuff under Everyday life. Geometry guy 13:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not really sure how agriculture fits in "everyday life" as a level 2 sub-section. Perhaps as a level 3 sub-sub-section of "food and drink", unless I'm missing something obvious... Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks for joining in! I was worried this was going to be a two person discussion!
The problem is that "agriculture and aquaculture" includes things such as forestry, horticulture and pearl farming, which don't have anything to do with food. At the moment the only GAs are Agricultural extension and Christmas tree cultivation, so I expect the creation of this subtopic is a historical accident which can be fixed. But we need a convincingly good fix! Geometry guy 18:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
In that case, it might be advisable to put all primary economic activities into one category, as a level 2 section of Everyday life. Having only agriculture there seems a bit off. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a nice idea, but raises the question whether this stuff is better placed with business and economics under "Social sciences and society". These decisions are not easy, so my view is we should look for stable solutions rather than ideal ones. Geometry guy 22:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Ugh. It gets complicated from there... because you could have an article about corn under food, but since it also is an economically important crop, it would be under "Agriculture et al" under Econ in Social Sciences. But an article about an apple would probably fit better under "Food and drink". I dunno. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 23:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Would "Farming and cultivation" be a better title? This covers farming of animals, crops, and fish, as well as cultivation of plants in horticulture and forestry. Geometry guy 22:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Support Yes, I like that idea (Farming and cultivation)! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Walkerma (talk • contribs) 03:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Typography and design

The current GA "Art and architecture" subtopic includes "Typography". Apparently this was created for a single article Canons of page construction, which does not obviously belong elsewhere. This raises a wider question: where are articles on design supposed to go? Some belong under technology, but it is much less clear what to do with articles on fashion design, interior design, etc. At the moment, they tend to be listed under "culture and society", but I would have thought there was a greater affinity with architecture. Geometry guy 15:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure - I'd like to see a likely selection of the articles that would actually actually be defined that way, then judge. Do you have a feel for that? If not, I have a feeling the discussions on this page will be ongoing - as more articles are selected, there are more and more subtopics arising, but we may not be able to classify them all now. Walkerma (talk) 06:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Apart from the Canons (I've fixed the link above), current GAs which could be considered part of design include: Anthony Eden hat, Necktie, Susannah Constantine. There are also articles such as Interior design, Fashion design, Graphic design, Typography, Studio pottery, Waterford crystal, Woodcarving, and Art Deco, which are hard to place in the current categories. There does seem to be a gap here, but I'm not sure what to call it: Applied art, Art and design, Arts and crafts, Creative design,...? Geometry guy 12:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
"Arts, crafts and design"? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Arts, crafts and design sounds good to me! Walkerma (talk) 05:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I marginally prefer "Applied art" because "Arts, crafts and design" seems to include "Arts"! Anyway, we seem to be agreed that there is a gap here, which is the main thing. Geometry guy 20:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heraldry, awards, decorations, nobility etc.

There aren't very many GA/RV discrepancies left. One is heraldry, which is part of Awards and decorations (Socsci) in RV, and part of Royalty and nobility (History) in GA. I have to admit, I am completely unconvinced by the whole idea of an awards/decorations subtopic. Most awards and decorations belong in a different category: the heraldry is part of history, the military awards are part of warfare, boy scout awards are part of culture, national awards are part of politics and government, film awards are part of cinema. So I'd rather scrap and redistribute this heading, but would be happy with any choice that is consistent between the projects.

Related to this, of course, is the fact that GA separates out monarchs and nobility from other historical figures. Is this helpful, or unhelpful? Again, consistency is all I hope for here, not an ideal solution. Geometry guy 22:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I've scrapped "Awards and decorations" at GA, since the section is so small as to be worse than useless. There's now a subsubtopic for military awards and decorations in the War and military section. Geometry guy 13:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recreation

This is not a compatibility requirement, but the case has been made at GA for splitting "Recreation" into "Sports and recreation" and "Video games" (or something similar). This is a reflection of the large number of article we have on video games, and the sharp distinction between in-front-of-a-computer style recreation, and sports. Is there support here for such a split? I certainly favour it, but am unsure exactly what to call the two replacement subtopics. Geometry guy 22:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Such a splitting has now been carried out by Tarret Geometry guy 20:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Names of topics and subtopics

I think that most harmonization issues have been addressed, apart from some naming conventions. One which particularly bugs me is the "Applied sciences and technology" topic, which has multiple variants in different places. My own view is that "Engineering and technology" is the best name for this topic, as most of the applied sciences are now listed under "natural sciences" anyway.

There are a couple of subtopics which need a consistent name: do we prefer "culture and society" or "sociology and society", or a third alternative?

Finally, I would prefer "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" to "Atmospheric sciences", as most articles here are going to be about the weather and tropical storms, not about the science of the atmosphere. Geometry guy 22:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Implementation issues

Although we are still some way from having a harmonized 1.0 classification, it may be worth discussing what work will need to be done to implement any changes, as this may affect the choices we make. At GA, moving a subtopic from one of the 10 topics to another does require some work: not only do the GA and GAN pages need to be updated, but individual articles need to have the topic parameter in the {{GA}} or {{ArticleHistory}} template changed. Are there similar issues with the release versions? I know that {{WP1.0}} has a category parameter analogous to the GA topic parameter. Is it actively used? Presumably, we don't want to retroactively change Wikipedia 0.5: will this cause problems? Geometry guy 15:29, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

We can be much more flexible here, I think. I started crosslisting articles for V0.5, and no one objected, so I think it's gradually ended up as policy! I was just aware that once we did away with the need to be counting articles on the page, we didn't need to worry about listing someone like Imran Khan (to be topical) under both cricket and politics. My view is that the "user is king" in such decisions, meaning that the format of the page (which people are using as the main page when they load the CD they bought) needs to make it REALLY easy to find the article you want. Crosslisting means that if we want to have a design article listed under architecture, but it includes elements that belong under technology, then it's OK. The category parameter is actively used, but even with a crosslisted article only one category is used. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 06:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. So is 0.5 still dynamic regarding such crosslisting, or is it now set in stone? At GA, of course, the categorization is mainly for editors, not readers: readers have the honest category system instead. But I don't think this difference is likely to cause any problems with the harmonization of the top two levels. Speaking of GA, I think it is about time I advertised this process at WP:WGA, if others are agreed. Geometry guy 12:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Glad to see that the changes have been approved at GA, and thanks for work on that, G-Guy. Does anyone mind if I implement all changes at 1.0 for which there is a clear consensus (or at least no objections) above? This is relevant, as we are currently discussing semi-automation of category assignments for articles. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 06:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Please go ahead. Geometry guy 13:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)