Wikipedia talk:User categorisation: Difference between revisions

Hello all, created the preliminary page. I have a few questions of the community and those who would be contributing... First of all, should this be made an actual WikiProject (as in, should we put in the standard WikiProject template, add it to the WikiProject category, and all of the other work that goes into doing that sort of thing), or is it simply not large enough to warrant its own project? Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Answers? Please post them all here, also please feel free to post to my talk page and contact me on AIM, my s/n is the same as here (thereverendeg). --thereverendeg 01:20, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons

From the article:

This change makes sense for inumerable reasons!

You know, I agree that this makes more sense, but it would clearly be better if you listed some of the reasons that this change would be for the better. (Also, innumerable has two ns.) Brighterorange 15:07, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't this fall under that category of things you should fix instead of complaining about? How long would it take you to fix this? Maybe a minute, but probably not even that long. --thereverendeg 16:11, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template for <div> tag

I was thinking of creating a template CSS for the <div> tag called Template:Cat-class. This sort of thing has been done before with the Template:Prettytable.

The initial template would include the style="margin:1em; text-align:center; padding:.25em; border:1.0px gray dashed;" information, and the tag would look like this in each category page:

<div {{Cat-class}}>
...
...
</div>

This means that if you want to change the properties of the classification, you only need to do it once and it will have a global effect on all the categories. Thoughts anyone? – AxSkov (T) 10:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question on clasification.

How would Category:Scandinavian wikipedians be clasified in this scheme? It's mainly a sub-category for Norwegian, Danish and Swedish users, but I see a few users are also directly in the category. None of those categories where created as part of this project as far as I can tell, I was planning to start on the Norwegian users list and redirect the old Category:Norwegian users (only 3 users listed anyway) category to Categoy:Wikipedians in Norway for the sake of completenes, but I'm a bit unsure how to treat the Category:Scandinavian wikipedians category (Category:Norwegian users is a subcat of it currently.). In many ways it would be redundant because ALL Norwegians, Danes and Swedes are Scandinavians but some people might object if I take unilateral action without discussing it first.
P.S. It can't be compared with Category:Wikipedians in Basque Country, that is a small area of two countries, but Scandinavia is on a "higher level" than the nations it encompas, wich cause a problem because no other nations are subclassed unter they continent or region. --Sherool 12:46, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Scandinavian wikipedians could be compared to that of the Caribbean Wikipedians. As I see it, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish users are sub-categories of the Scandinavian wikipedians category. Regarding the redirection of Norwegian users, another option would be to redirect to Norwegian wikipedians to conform with Scandinavian wikipedians, or just leave it as it is, so there isn't a dead page. – AxSkov (T) 13:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Argentina

Does it make sense for Argentina to be the only category with "of" instead of "in"? (Category:Wikipedians of Argentina) PeepP 14:06, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

It's an old one and needs to be changed immediately. – AxSkov (T) 15:30, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was about to list it on speedy renaming, but noticed there is already a Category:Wikipedians in Argentina. Seems thereverendeg has created that, and it says "of" should be used instead. I presume that is an error, and we should just move the content from the "of" page to the "in" page, then list "of" on category deletions? PeepP 17:44, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I added a section "categories to rename". A nice side effect of the automatic script output was to show misspelled categories. PeepP 18:37, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

This is like many of the suggested renames, the Category name being questioned (inconsistent with most) was the ORIGINAL category - it already existed and there were many people listed through it, so I considered it wiser to keep the old category. For the sake of consistency I understand your discussion and I am going to count myself NEUTRAL as I personally don't think either name is superior to the other. In fact, 'of' is probably more appropriate but by the time I had figured that I had created dozens of categories and, because I am not an admin and cannot delete or rename pages, did not want to leave tons of dead pages lying around.

Some comments

Firstly, why are some categories named "Wikipedians in Country", while others are "Countryan Wikipedians""? I understand that the categories not only mark present location, but also nationality (i.e. belonging to an ethnic group) and association. If it is so, then all of these categories should be called "Countryan Wikipedians".

Then, why do the subpages in Wikipedia:Wikipedians have notices saying the page moved, not a redirect? This is not very important though, as they will be deleted soon anyway.

PeepP 17:38, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

The reason for the different names are simply that a handfull of categories existed prior to this project. As for why not "countryan Wikipedians" see Wikipedia talk:Category titles for a in-depth debate over that very issue. For the record I support the "Foo in/of/from Country/Province/City" naming scheme (because it allows for maximum consiustency, not all nations have a well known adjective form, and some don't have one at all) for categories, as do I would guess the founder of this project. --Sherool 23:25, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I feel there needs to be consistenty throughout this project and "Category:Wikipedian in Country/Province/City" seems to be the best form. As such these need to be changed to be brought into line.

-- Ianblair23 09:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have essentially responded to this above in the discussion titled 'Argentina' - I have thought about the issues of consistency and meaning, and basically I didn't want to leave dead pages lying around. Maybe create seperate categories for ethnicity/location/relation? Like I said above, I think that 'of' would pretty much cover all of them. However, this would mean I could theoretically list myslef as a 'Wikipedian of The Netherlands' because of my heritage, but I've never even been to The Netherlands. I am counting myself nutral on this issue and will go with what you more experianced Wikipedians go for, as I am pretty much unable to decide what to do. --thereverendeg 03:21, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Main Objections

What about the main reason why these lists has been established ? From the Wikipedia:Wikipedians Page: "*Special:Listusers is an automatic listing; however, due to technical limitations, it does not list all users."

The Mediawiki software cannot display all items of so big categories and even if it could, there is a second pracital reason why these lists were established:
Google and other search engines see only the first 200 entries of a category due to the database character of the URLs. Therefore i humbly ask who decided about this radical change and was the public asked ? Maybe a poll should be started before moving so much information. Thanks, --Leopard 22:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Although I see some reasons why categories might be preferred over lists, I agree that this is a radical change that deserves at least more publicity before execution. Also:

If you're going to change people's user pages, they should at least be warned.
I prefer not to have such a template on my user page.
The general category titles are still under discussion. Please keep in mind that the following aren't always synonymous:
1. "Adjective foo"
2. "Foo of bar"
3. "Foo in bar"
4. "Foo from bar"
5. "Foo interested in or involved with, etc. bar"

Maurreen (talk) 00:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is another problem that arises if you change from lists to categories:

Many users have written explanations, refinements and comments that would be lost if you change to categories. Since these lists have community building as a purpose that would cut its usefullness quite a lot. --Leopard 01:54, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the lateness of my response, I was out of town on business and without the internet for the last few days. First of all, I want to say that I am no longer going to be editing user's pages ever, and I urge other participants not to either. Instead, please visit their talk pages and let them know about changes, so they can choose to add or not to add themselves. Also, about the Google deal... From what I've read on Wikipedia, it is not supposed to be an issue of one users' rank on Google over another. Wikipedia isn't Google. I will try to find where I read this and post it hear soon. Also, I don't think that any of the individual lists on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians pages have more than 200 entries. I could be wrong about this, but most areas can be broken up into smaller areas to cure this problem anyhow (example - Category:Wikipedians in New York vs. Category:Wikipedians in Upstate NY). --thereverendeg 03:29, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. Maurreen (talk) 05:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Does this mean that the lists will be kept and the categories are a supplement ? Regarding Google: I'm not concerned about the rank on Google over another but about the content. Google has found the userpages through these lists. Do you know if the bugs mentioned on Wikipedia:Wikipedians are still causing trouble ? “due to technical limitations, it does not list all users.” --Leopard 06:27, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Listuser page has absolutely nothing to do with this project or the Wikipedians pages. It doesn't categorize users. So far the lists haven't been kept as changes are made, because it would be redundant.... I mean, reverts back to the way they were could always happen, but it seems like the lists are very unmanageable, unsorted, not systematic or dynamic, and probably take up a lot of space.

Category:Windows XP users

I've suggested that Category:Windows XP users be renamed to Category:Windows users (or Category:Microsoft Windows users) to be more broad. (see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Windows XP users) ^…Mar kaci 2005-08-4 T 18:18:55 Z

@@ Line 105: / Line 105: @@
 Thanks for your response. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 05:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
 :Does this mean that the lists will be kept and the categories are a supplement ? Regarding Google: I'm not concerned about the ''rank on Google over another'' but about the content. Google has found the userpages through these lists. Do you know if the bugs mentioned on [[Wikipedia:Wikipedians]] are still causing trouble ? “due to technical limitations, it does not list all users.”  --[[User:Leopard|Leopard]] 06:27, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
+:: The Listuser page has absolutely nothing to do with this project or the Wikipedians pages. It doesn't categorize users. So far the lists haven't been kept as changes are made, because it would be redundant.... I mean, reverts back to the way they were could always happen, but it seems like the lists are very unmanageable, unsorted, not systematic or dynamic, and probably take up a lot of space.
 == [[:Category:Windows XP users]] ==

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