Talk:Categories Explained

Gale 14Sep08 17:24 UTC: Do we want all the explanations of what the various categories are here? I'm thinking we only one want one here as an example of what an Intro looks like, and explanations of the major categories on Category:Category?

James: Could split that section out to a new page, Category Intros. Wouldn't be an important page at all, but there for anyone interested. Would make this page clearer, yes.

Gale: And if it was possible, rather than have Category:Category, it might be better to hack into Special:Categories which avoids having to confusingly describe categories as "subcategories". I don't see an obvious way to do it yet, as the text there does not seem to be a system message. Is it worth trying to pursue this?

James: I don't think media wiki has a design philosophy that allows that kind of hacking without actually changing the code - which then messes things up when we upgrade, so a good idea but not worth pursuing because likely not to be successful.


 * Gale: Yes, probably the inevitable answer about "hacking". Would be good to press the MediaWiki developers to build in some more flexibility for customisation, pretty easy on the Forum from the Admin Control Panel. But as stated on Category:Category, Categories Explained is for "how categories are used on this Wiki" (not what their content is). So if we were going to give more explanation of what the core categories are, then I'd say Category:Category is the place to do it (I don't think saying there "click to find out" is enough?)


 * James: Well of course, we could also change the wording of the link to say that it explains what the categories are... You decide.


 * Gale: It still makes far more sense to me to explain the category content on the page that links from "Search Wiki by Category" i.e. Category:Category, so that's decided. I would also suggest making this clearer by renaming Categories Explained to Categorisation or Using Categories. I'll go with Categorisation unless you have a better suggestion.