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WP1.0 editorial team discussions – Core topics COTW – Wiki sort discussions – FAs first discussions – Work via WikiProjects discussions – Pushing to 1.0 discussions

An outline of history

This is an exercise in classifying types of history: outline of history. The top two levels of categories (and this goes down five levels, not comprehensive) are:

  • 1.1 Biography
  • 1.2 History: Fields of study
    • 1.2.1 Cultural and Social history
    • 1.2.2 Natural history
  • 1.3 History: Methods, Philosophy and Types
    • 1.3.1 Historical methods and Historiography
    • 1.3.2 Hypothetical histories
    • 1.3.3 Philosophy of history
    • 1.3.4 Religious cosmology

Through surfing history articles, I made this outline to explore and get more of a sense of history as a multi-dimensional field, as diverse areas of study. I was also trying to get a sense, in the Wikipedia context, of how basic is history to understanding human experience and knowledge.

Very general types of history include cultural narratives, social scientific studies, and historical natural scientific studies (not usually thought of as history, the liberal art). There are diverse philosophies and methods in history. Almost anything can be studied historically and has a historical dimension. Just as geography approaches phenomena in the general domain of space, so history approaches phenomena in the general domain of time. These are complementary.

In light of this exploration, I lean now (in terms of the recent categorization discussions) to thinking: in 9-to-12-fold category schemes, history is good to include as top level category. Perhaps there are some more core topics, top 200 and top 1000, in the above outline.

Category sets and final "tree top"

I think this Category sets outline offers a scalable category system that is structurally sturdy. This system was inspired during writing & discussions here of alternating revisions of category sets. The linked page outlines sets increasing in size from 2-fold to 4-, 8-, 12-fold and so on up to 32-fold sets.

The categories sets increase from very general knowledge and experience categories by gradually adding less general categories. Without my conscious intention, the 8-fold and 12-fold sets are very similar to several of the English Wikipedia top level categories on the list of topic lists and list of reference tables pages. Also, the 8-fold set is the same as Martin's Core Topic Tree with the exception of replacing "Everyday Life" with "History" and editing naming of categories a bit.

The 8-fold set is almost identical to the revision of 6A in the note above -- the only change being to combine "Natural Sciences" and "Technology", as in:

8-fold category set / Revision of Option 6A

  • Arts
  • Philosophy & Religion
  • Geography
  • History
  • Mathematics
  • Natural Sciences & Technology
  • Social Sciences
  • Society

There are other possible classification systems (that can be explored), but as this is close to what is in place in the English Wikipedia...

For now, I recommend we go with this set or something between this and the 12-fold set linked above. Any favorite categories that aren't in the above, probably emerge in the larger sets. Anything that doesn't seem to fit above can be thought of as resting in the largest "catch all" categories "Society" and "Natural Sciences" (which would be better labeled "Science" perhaps, to serve as a catch all for engineering, medicine, etc.).

If you like, take a look at the progression up through about 16 or 20-fold sets on the category set page. I think you'll see a deep structure that makes sense. It is imminent in the progression from the 2 to 4 to 8-fold sets. Culture, Society, Science & Technology and Indexical (or locational) Knowledge (such as geography) are four basic categories that organize the unfolding of larger sets, in a balanced way.

So, given the close similarity of the above to the English Wikipedia category sets mentioned above and to Martin's tree and to the revisions of 6A between Maureen and I, I think we're nearing a finished result. Any comments? Suggested edits?

What do you all think of using the above 8-fold set for the core topics "tree top" of basic categories? --Vir 04:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to see science and technology separated - based on what I've seen from WikiProject contacts, those categories are both pretty large - so I think I prefer the 9-fold "revised 6A above. What do others think? Should we offer both the 8 and the 9 to the main WP1.0 group for their opinions? Walkerma 04:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I am fine with the sci-tech split or any variant that adds to the 8-fold set any of the new 12-fold cats. (See addition of 12-fold set above). As a lot more articles are added to an outline, one might wish to use larger sets of top categories. When one gets to a 20-fold set or more then it seems best to organizize categories under the 4-fold category structure of, briefly, culture, society, science & tech, and location knowledge (need better name). The new categories added in the 12-fold set are noted in an added comment just above. --Vir 05:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Ps. Here is a 10 category option that uses Martin's idea of splitting sci/tech. And, it also adds the lang/lit cat -- and it brings in the everyday life cat by combining soc sci w/ society to make room. With this 10-fold set, we have a 1/2 and 1/2 balance between culture/society & science/indexical knowledge cats. This option is nice in that we have more top level info and we split up the large science/tech and society cats (with more info being in everyday life than soc sci). One suggestion: it is good to avoid editing out words from titles so as not to loose key information.

10-fold category set / Revision of Option 6A

  • Arts
  • Language & Literature
  • Philosophy & Religion
  • Everyday Life
  • Social Sciences & Society
  • Geography
  • History
  • Engineering (or Applied Sciences) & Technology
  • Mathematics
  • Natural Sciences

Perhaps we could propose an 8-fold and 10-fold option to the main 1.0 list, and recommend those, and note that 9-fold and 11/12-fold are possible too and refer to a page with other options. What do you think? --Vir 14:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I like this 10-fold one, we can go with engineering. Let's do what you suggest and propose these to the main 1.0 folks for comment, if Maurreen and others agree. Walkerma 15:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Groovey. In case the above flies, I'm going to start on the proposal write up (to try to succinctly summarize the underlying issues -- hmm, is that doable?). --Vir 15:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Ps. I created a project page for the category set page, Category sets, and added it to the list of core topics sub-pages at the top of the Core topics page. This will be linked in the proposal write up. --Vir 16:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Summary?

Can someone please concisely summarize for me the discussion between 07:49, 8 April 2006 and now?

And can we please slow down a little? Momentum is good, but so is pacing. Going from lulls to big bursts is hard for me to digest. I would like to absorb and reflect and respond and give my own ideas. Maurreen 17:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Maurreen, in reply to various points: If you read the comment section just above at "Category sets and final "tree top"" I think you'll get the current status of the categories issues. The history note above needn't be read -- it was a summary of some experimenting with classification on another page. Bursts is how I work (on weekends, sometimes). Now that it is monday, my attention will mostly be elsewhere for the week (weekdays). I'll wait on putting a summary proposal together until you comment. I'm figuring you'll like the options above since they are similar to what you liked before. (One thing: Language/Literature is the newest category in the category set system -- replacing Lit with Media might work better). Regarding the wikiproject lists/core topic list: integration sounds useful and effective (if I'm understanding that process). I wrote up a reply to you on my talk page about the release version ideas you asked about -- that will probably sit there awhile. If there is anything useful there, feel free to include. One main point, if a scientific review step isn't made yet, one needs to be included, where appropriate. Also, a final copy edit & proofing. The more review the better. --Vir 18:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not clear on what the issues are, but I'd like to handle them one at a time.
I am sorry if I am harsh, but I have spent much more time considering these main categories than I want to. I can probably at least live with any such category set that is OK with Martin. I don't want to think about it anymore. Martin has my proxy.
Once we have that settled and done, hopefully not to be brought up again for a long time, we can move on to whatever is next, such as, for example, working on the articles or with the Wikiprojects group. Maurreen 03:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Clarifying -- By "my proxy", I mean for just whatever our main categories are.
And can we give all talk of categories a rest for a little while? Thanks. Maurreen 03:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you are worn out with the topic of categories. Some of the issues above are summarized at the top of "category sets" page. I think we are close to resolving this step. If you want to focus on other things, fine. But, we can complete this. The options presented are very near a compromise (synthesis of concerns) that was emerging. I am going to summarize the options this coming weekend as a proposal.
In general, I strongly believe Wikipedia needs an ongoing process of developing category systems. I think others in WP feel that way. This involves the goal achieving a NPOV (through considering alternate knowledge organization systems) in the structuring of knowledge -- a very basic concern (as much so as NPOV in articles). I've been thinking for awhile that this needs it's own project. If that gets under way, summaries of any work could be shared back here. --Vir 15:32, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, there is a categories project somewhere. Maurreen 17:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yup, there are several that were listed above -- though I'm not sure they are quite the same thing as we are discussing above. Vir 17:54, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Projects on Categorization

Wikiprojects and core topics

Please see note at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Maurreen 17:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed initial quality standards

Copied from project page.

  • At least two people give the article a recent and at least moderate level of review and agree that it meets the standard. Ideally, at least one would be involved with the 1.0 project, at least one would be at least moderately knowledgeable about the subject, and at least one would be a layman about the subject.
  • Any easily fixable problems should be fixed.
  • In no particlular order, articles should:
    • be NPOV,
    • be reasonably clear,
    • be factually correct,
    • be organized adequately,
    • be visually adequate (that is, not ugly),
    • be adequate in scope and proportion,
    • use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation,
    • use style consistent within the article,
    • list at least one appropriate reference, source, further information item, or external link. A link only fulfills this obligation if it connects to a reputable government, professional or education source. Any external links must still be valid. Maurreen 18:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Why not just say that the article should be a Good article? A Good Article has to:

  • be NPOV
  • be well written
  • be factually accurate and verifiable:
  • be broad in its coverage
  • be stable
  • contain images to illustrate it, where possible

... which covers the above nicely. Tompw 20:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

End of copied text. Maurreen 04:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

There are some diferences, but that's a valid point.
But maybe standards for core topics will be moot, if Release Version Qualifying takes off. Maurreen 04:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Maybe not moot, since presumably we will nominate everything on the core topics list for inclusion in RVQ. We need to agree that the articles make the grade.
In general I think we should:
  • For an initial test release (version 0.5, 0.8 etc), with a disclaimer, try to get mainly A-Class/GA or FA articles, but include B-Class articles where necessary for completeness.
  • For our first "official" release of the general encyclopedia (version 1.0 itself) we include only articles A-Class/GA or FA. By then (2007?) we should have got all of the core topics up to A-Class.
  • For "themed" releases, for complete subject coverage we will have to include many incomplete articles, as Kat has pointed out. Walkerma 17:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Mini tree of lower-quality articles

I am getting ready to put up a mini tree of lower-quality articles. It will be on the project page, part of the "Article Status Summary." It is intended to be a simple, streamlined way for people interested in a given field to see which articles most need their attention. But it is quick and dirty and can probably be improved. Please feel free to do so. Maurreen 17:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

That is a helpful list to have. I sorted the misc. section into the 2 categories. I renamed the 2 categories to be more inclusive. Two categories works for this short list. Though, a 4 category set might work well too, perhaps something like this 4 category set on this page (which I edited based on the "category set" outline above): GA Nominations.
Eventually, we could use a perl program that generates this list and a list of all articles by ratings (and other such groupings), based on the table of the quality status of the core 200 or 1000 articles. Vir 18:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Maurreen 18:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Welcome. You know, it would be nice to put the wikiproject-generated core topic lists in a database that can be sorted. Wondering if any perl programmers will wander by sometime. At what point it would make sense to request comments on a techie listserv? Soon? Vir 18:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I'd rather not think about that. Maurreen 02:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

GA-Class tag -- how to use?

The new GA-Class tag overlaps with ratings of articles as A-Class and B-Class. See an example of the overlap and where I put the A & B ratings (in empty groups field - no info lost) for Advertising and Agriculture. I think we need a separate column to use FA and GA tags. We'll want an extra column also, for noting both release qualifying and FA/GA status. That is unless we come up with a way (editing the tag formats) to note double status in one column. That might be preferable. What do you all think? --Vir 17:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't entirely understand that, but as far as I'm concerned:
  • FAs are tops.
  • GAs are the next quality level.
  • Then A-class and so forth.
Does that help? Maurreen 17:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think A-Class articles should be above GA-Class. A-Class articles are in a position where they would be potentially successful in a FAC; while GAs are identified as articles still needing a bit of work. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Some info that you guys might not be aware of:

  • Some of the A-class articles that were submitted for GA but didn't make it on the first round.
  • I believe than many of the initial assessments were cursory. I know mine were. Maurreen 06:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I believe some of our B-Class articles made it as GAs too. I think on balance our A-Class roughly correspond to GA. I regard A-Class these days as "Good candidates for GA," most will pass OK unless we missed something. From WP:Chem I submitted all 28 or so of our A-Class articles before the WP:GAN system was in place, knowing all had undergone peer review at the project, and none of those articles was even questioned. In reality you won't get perfect correspondence:
  • As Maurreen says, our assessments are cursory (they have to be!) and I think many of the GA assessments are fairly cursory too (also inevitable).
  • The criteria are subjective. Look at WP:AA where you see more detail - different reviewers can see things very differently.
  • Until we have a system of validation (as opposed to assessment- scroll down if you follow this link), factual content cannot realistically be verified by non-experts. How many people have checked that the bond angle in the GA on gold(III) chloride is correct? Someone with a little knowledge may see the article as riddled with factual errors/western bias etc, someone just looking at aesthetics may just see a nicely written article.
  • Being Wikipedia, the articles change - usually for the better, occasionally for the worse.

I say let's include the GA tag in place of A-Class (or B-Class) where it occurs, as this is now a widely accepted ranking and it has had a more formal review. For our purposes both GA and A-Class mean publishable, so I don't think ranking them matters too much. Walkerma 07:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good resolution. Is this correct then: A equals GA or GA-candidate, roughly? That is, A-class could sort of mean that we have identified a GA-candidate quality article. To deal with possible remaining inconsistent uses of evaluation schemes, we could: submit all A-class articles here for GA review again. If an A-class article doesn't pass GA, perhaps we may need to think about a down grade of such to B-class (or, note somewhere that we do not agree with the GA evaluation and keep the A-class rank). However, there is a problem:
While here A-class can --> GA, over in the GA list, GA-class does not --> A-class here (do to uneveness of review on GA list). Having looked over many GA articles, I question that GA approval clearly means that an article is publishable. There remain problems in a lot of GA articles. There needs to be a separate review somehow. --Vir 18:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Ps. Based on thinking further on the above and reflecting on my experience (When I gravitated to work in the GA group a bit ago, I submitted A-class articles for GA review. As Martin noted, some did not pass. I noted the results in a note above: Recent good article review finished. I don't know if this was done previously or again. Also, I reviewed briefly many GA articles around that time.): There seem to be inconsistencies in between GA and A/B-class reviews -- This may be mostly to do with the unevenness in GA single-review system. Anyway, these are two different review systems that sometimes produce contradictory results. And, for now, these review processes double check each other. So, for now, I think we need two columns. We don't want to throw away data about articles or systemic conflicts. (I have extensive experience as a data analyst. For our purposes, you want to have two columns. It is easier to compare data. But, you can have one column with diverse data.) Rating conflicts help us as they point to inconsistent reviews. If even after reviews in both processes, something remains as B-class and GA or not-GA and A-class, then there is a problem that needs resolving. Resubmitting for review might not deal with that. For these reasons, unless we solely chose use GA/FA ratings (and I'm not sure that is best solution as we want someway to track our independent evaluations), I think we need one column in the core topic table for FA/GA ratings and another for (RQ?)/A/B/etc ratings. (Note that old FA articles also have problems.) Tracking all this becomes a serious issue in the move from 200 to 1000 articles. So, good to anticipate. --Vir 20:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

"Leaves" on a branch

I'd like to suggest that any branch should have at least three items on it. An exception could be made if we have "Miscellaneous", which could have just two items. Maurreen 17:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I give up. Maurreen 03:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

"Business" in the article status summary

Vir and I apparently disagree on whether "Business" should stand alone in the mini-tree of needy articles.

I'd like to ask Martin or anyone else to give a third opinion, and I will abide by it.

If Vir just wants a longer name, any combination of "Business", "Economics" and "Finance" would be fine with me. I'm not too particular if they're under some section of the tree.

But in my view, these articles (Business, Industry, Manufacturing, and Personal Finance) deserve to be a stand-alone set, and not to include disparate articles such as Country. Thanks. Maurreen 17:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoa! Let's slow down here. An extended discussion of categorization is under way here. It is near closure.
Maurreen, I ask you to please continue and/or to support the conclusion of that discussion process. Please, let's not let our feelings about other issues (such as recent disagreements about release version issues -- very important issues) interrupt this simpler categorization discussion.
It would be best if we can refine a system we have been developing. Recently, we were compromising on categorization options and ariving at something quite similar in our options (see half a dozen notes or so above). Please, let's not just step out of process and develop a new system outside of our discussions and existing options. Let's introduce other options and issues in the discussions. At some points, we have been close to an agreement (and having very similar outlines) about category system to use. Btw, Econ/Business appears as a top level (for 8-10 cats) in no or very few Wikipedia contexts. It is a subcategory. But it does start to appear in longer lists (of 15 or 20 and more cats). That is as it should be, since economy is a subset of social structures, just like politics and family and so forth.
Maurreen, I invite you to continue discussions here (and we were close to an agreed format) or to bow out of this decision process (as you had said you had done) and let others continue refining the categories. I don't agree with your proposal to just stop this process now and call a decision on a minor point which would be to abruptly force closure of that ongoing process. What I agree with is continuing those discussions and not rushing to decision and not stepping out of process to implement something when one doesn't agree with the direction of an ongoing process (the outcome of which so far is very similar to what you and I were working on arriving at in the recent past). Let's take a breather. It takes time to make compromises. Then, let's finish the job next week. How about that? --Vir 17:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
How about we keep things simple and just accept a third opinion on a small question? How is that a problem?
How about you don't make assumptions?
Whatever happens with umpteen categories, etc., that you're working on elsewhere doesn't necessarily need to affect this little set of about 40. Maurreen 02:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
What I mean by "How about you don't make assumptions?" would be better phrased as "Please don't make assumptions about me." This is also more or less known in WP as Wikipedia:Assume good faith.
I am at least mainly referring to the following:
"Please, let's not let our feelings about other issues (such as recent disagreements about release version issues -- very important issues) interrupt this simpler categorization discussion."
I don't understand you getting worked up about this when I'm bringing the issue to the talk page, which is the way to decide disagreements.
If you disagree with the "Business" category, I would have preferred for you to bring the issue here instead of delete the section twice. Maurreen 02:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with "Indexical", but no biggie, I let it go.
It would seem like a reasonable and fair compromise to me for you to have "Indexical" and me to have "Business". Maurreen 02:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Aw, never mind, this isn't worth it. Do whatever you want. Maurreen 03:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I took some time to write the following up -- over an hour, what with breaks. Then, when I went to add it, you had written the extra parts above, including "never mind." I'll go ahead and post this. Funny that we were thinking the same thing. This small issue is definitely not worth much energy. The larger categorization decision is worth some time.
Please feel free to edit the list at the top of the core topics page however you want it to look. I'll take some time to write out some of my reasoning: I'm not going to be putting my editing attention on applications of categories until we come to a consensus agreement on what category set(s) to use in general. What you suggest above is a small thing, on the surface. But, it is a category set at the top of the core topics page (an example of categorization). That is why I was putting attention on it. I wanted to try applying what had evolved in our discussions. But, that small outline is not worth much energy in disagreement. What we need is agreed upon category set(s) to use for the main 1.0 contexts, such as the core topics table, and eventually, the Wikiprojects page, and when more agree, eventually in publications. (The category set probably will evolve through group discussions over time. Fine.) The main thing is I do believe the subgroup here can reach an agreement of what preliminary category set(s) to start using and proposing (perhaps using a version of the revised option 6A, 8-10 cats, above). I even think we could create a wider set of options, later -- we are creative and reasonable bunch of folks. But, if not, perhaps the larger 1.0 group will have more success with that.
For now, I propose we wait on wrapping up the category set discussion process and reconsider in a bit. Meanwhile, I'm not attached to what is used anywhere as categories for now. Hopefully, if and when this subgroup decides what category system to start using, we can implement that at the top of the Core topics page and on the Core topics table. And, hopefully we will have something to propose to the larger 1.0 group, which will save work in the long run. We are certainly going to need an agreed category set for the 0.5 to 1.0 publications and so forth. So, anyway. We are/were close together on a few options. Please, let's work a bit more for consensus on this fairly simple thing. OK? I'm don't think we should give up on working for consensus yet. Time might help. It would be nice to get the ball rolling together on this -- especially if we are going to be working together a good while.
Anyway, I wish I could talk more here to resolve things soon. But, something came up today, a tight deadline I have to meet next week. Other than minor article reviews and edits, I won't be able discuss issues here until next week or the one after.--Vir 03:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Ps. I had decided to clean up the mini-tree example and trim empty categories that I had added (just for example) and trim the "index" category (it needs another clearer name) as it didn't have enough instances, only two. (That category can make sense with more instances.) When doing that clean up, I had decided to leave the "business" category, as it was there as of last edit. Didn't seem a big deal at time as a subtopic label. So, it is up there. Working in good faith is a good idea. More communication hopefully will clear up misunderstandings. I hope we can complete the preliminary working category set decision with some negotiation (might not take much as we have proposed quite similar 8-fold options) later next week or the week after. --Vir 04:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorting by Wikiprojects

I put up a note on the team's main talk page about sorting by Wikiprojects. Maurreen 17:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree quite strongly with this idea. There is a much better way to proceed. We have been refining a top level categorization system here that is in line with general practice in the English wikipedia, including some ideas from French Wikipedia main page categories. We are near closure on the process. I propose that we decide and then apply our refined category set (with whatever tweaks we make to it) to the top level sorting of the wikiprojects page. Let's not interrupt the almost completed process of deciding on what categories to use. See points relating to this in the post immediately above. --Vir 18:06, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
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