Forum:Categories

The categories are getting to be (in fact already are) quite a mess. People are arbitrarily adding categories right and left for any ol' little thing. Some might be appropriate, but after combing through the chaos for the last week or so, I'm seeing what chaos it is... and some just keep adding to it. A lot of these extraneous categories really aren't necessary. For instance: Locations. We get one "Category:(fill in the blank) locations"... then someone else sees that, thinks 'Hey...!' and adds their "Category:(fill in the blank) locations"... then another... then another... Eventually a page has a glut of "locations" categories, and it just looks chaotic. The same principle applies in many other cases. That might be okay for certain pages, where a place-name is specific to one or two continuities, but all...? I think folks need to start looking at what they're doing, and envisioning things down the road. Jrofeta and I are trying to clean this mess up, and y'all aren't making it easy....

Categories should follow the pattern of the category tree: One category branching into another (with "Lists" at the top). The "KISS" (keep it simple) rule applies: The simpler, the better. (Think cohesion.) "General use" articles (Spock, Janeway, Voyager, canon/common noun articles, etc.) should stay free of continuity-specific categories, as these are "general" and not "owned" by any one fan continuity. In other words, putting your category down might give the impression you think you own it, when we all know that's not the case. (Plus it keeps others from trying to "balance" it by adding their cats. to said articles, and starting the problem again.)

So, let's start getting some consensus and input on creation of new categories (especially from admins and members of STEU Project:Categories), and lay down some rules to keep this mess from growing again. (Thoughts and comments welcome.) SAS undefined 21:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)