User blog:Ngebendi/Categories - next

Perhaps, Kirby Phelps has a point in wanting a good number of categories at each article, but in my opinion it will not work. The purpose of categories is to navigate the wiki, not to introduce new information or echo what already exists - therefore, too many categories are perhaps worse than too few.

Let's take the shapeshifter example. We all know that: 1) while not all Quileutes are shapeshifters, all shapeshifters are Quileutes at least on their paternal side; 2) all shapeshifters are members of a pack; 3) with one exception, shapeshifters are all male. We can therefore infer a rule: mempership to a pack -> shapeshifter and male -> full-Quileute or part-Quileute on their paternal side. Categories will therefore reflect this rule: "Uley's pack", or "Black's pack" are the lowest level category, "shapeshifter" is the intermediate level categories, "Quileute" and "male" are the top categories. (We may even add an over-the-top category: "human", since it has not been proven that shapeshifters are a distinct species or just a specialized variety of human beings, either way.) Embry Call is no exception, that his mother is Makah is something to be stated in the article, whether in the categories is debatable. Leah Clearwater is only partially the exception to the rule: she's a fully functional shapeshifter, but she's female. We can introduce a low-level "female" category to override the higher-level "male" one - in this case the information is important enough to spill over into the categories.

By this rule, Kirby, you know that a member of any of the packs is a shapeshifter, a male (unless otherwise stated) and at least part Quileute (additional information in the article). Which reminds me that when Albert Einstein fled Germany for the US, he was asked his ethnicity and answered "human". You can hardly beat that.

This should answer, at least in part, Kean; my idea (which is actually provided by TagAlongPam, and I have no idea where she found it) is to provide a pyramid of categories from the most restrictive at the bottom and the most general at the top.

There will be plenty to do just in the planning stage; but since at this side of the Atlantic is 2 in the morning, I'll leave a deeper analysis of it for after I've caught some sleep. Ngebendi 00:13, October 9, 2010 (UTC)