Category talk:Dramatists and playwrights

See Category talk:Dramatists/Former category.

early comments
We have category 'playwright' as well. Since these mean exactly the same thing, I have taken the arbitrary decision that we will use 'playwright' and not 'dramatist' (because it's slightly clearly, and more importantly it has more entries in). Please to not add any more to this category. DJ Clayworth 15:07, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Don't make 'arbritary decisions'. This is being discussed on Category_talk:Playwright--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo (Talk)]] 15:28, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

We seem to have decided that we will use 'dramatist' rather than 'playwright'. Should be be including screenwriters and the like? DJ Clayworth 14:17, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I think it's safe to class screenplays as a separate genre from stage dramas, so we should have the category category:Screenplay writers. Is that okay with everyone or is there a better term?--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo (Talk)]] 17:11, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I'd like to suggest category:Film writers (shorter to write) and category:Film directors (directors is too broad)--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo (Talk)]] 21:33, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Added from CfD:

Category:Playwrights
May arguably be subtly different from its parent Category:Dramatists, but in practice the distinction is unhelpful. Actual population of "writers who write plays" is distributed between the two at random. --Bishonen 16:01, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Difference is more than subtle: in my view problems originated from a wrong category definition of Category:Dramatists (exclusively referring to playwrights, instead of to the Dramatist article). I started the extensive work now needed: creating more subcategories for the Dramatists category (along the new definition), and re-categorizing articles that are now in the Dramatist category. Please give a hand on that! --Francis Schonken 11:06, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Important! Renaming required, see Category talk:musical theatre director, Category talk:musical theatre librettist --Francis Schonken 11:39, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categories: dramatists versus playwrights
Hi, Francis, I'm sorry if I created extra work by putting up the category "Playwright" for deletion. I don't understand very well how to handle categories, in fact I didn't even know how to find their definitions (until I saw your links on WP:CFD and followed them). I was just trying to figure out which category to stick on some articles I'm writing about Restoration dramatists/playwrights, and it bothered me how randomly the population of Dramatist/Playwright seemed to be distributed.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you that dramatist is a word that can mean a whole variety of theatre people such as librettist, choreographer, or theatre director. That is just not English usage: a dramatist is an author of plays for performance in the theater (i.e. the same as playwright). I checked both OED (the big one) and Webster's unabridged 3rd edition, and they both agree with me. In fact, they both give playwright as a synonym. I think the difference between the two words is purely stylistic, not in what they refer to. (Dramatist sounds a little more impressive and serious—Shakespeare is usually referred to as a dramatist, Sheridan more often as a playwright.)

Since this is what I believe, and the major authorities for British and American usage respectively agree with me, I've edited Dramatist accordingly, and put a note on the talk page. Sorry, I really hope you don't think I'm acting in a hostile way. I have a lot of respect for your work. Please let me know if there's anything not so category-related (because I'm really ignorant about categories and how to create or define or populate them, etc) that I can do to help. --Bishonen 14:47, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dramatists etc...
Hi Bishonen,

Thanks for your note on my page. Indeed, I'm no native English speaker, and just tried to follow the content of the former "dramatist" article - assuming that Wikipedia can't be wrong ;o) - only extended it a bit to theatre directors too.

Just two minor questions still to you:
 * Is the usage of the word "Dramatist" and "Playwright" as you describe it identical in all English-speaking countries? If that is the case I would make the "Dramatist" article a "redirect", without further commentary, to "Playwrights"...
 * In English language, can "librettists" be considered either "Dramatists" or "Playwrights", or both, or neither?

Regarding categorization in general: if you have particular problems or questions: just ask - not sure whether I'd be able to answer, I go only from my personal experience too, and from the three "basic" guidelines regarding categorization, i.e.:
 * Categorization
 * Categories, lists, and series boxes
 * Categorization of people

--Francis Schonken 15:07, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Writers of plays again
Hello, Francis, ain't nobody here but us chickens. I'm not a native English speaker either. :-)

Belatedly I've discovered that there was a lively discussion of the playwright/dramatist distinction at Category talk:Dramatists/Former category. It seems to have died out in June, before either you or I came along. That's the thing with Wikipedia, we keep reinventing the wheel.

FWIW, I think there are two ways of taking the distinction: a) playwright is the parent category of all who write plays, while dramatist is a subcategory of those who write serious plays (dramas). This taxonomy is favored by a lot of the people entering the discussion at Category talk:Dramatists/Former category, and by the Dramatist article as it is now. Or b) dramatist and playwright are sister categories with very little overlap: dramatists are serious and playwrights are more lightweight, because of being more commercial, or writing comedies. (Somebody says in the discussion: "You wouldn't call Sophocles or T. S. Eliot playwrights, would you?") B) corresponds well to my own sense of the usage in my field of study, Restoration drama, that's what I was thinking of when I talked about subtle differences before. BUT it would obviously be a huge waste of time to try to implement and patrol b) category-wise. It makes my head hurt just to think about it. If I were you, I'd either go with a) for all category puposes, or simplify even further and decide they're synonyms. (Close enough, surely.) Redirecting Dramatist to Playwright sounds like a good idea, but you might want to do a bit of a merge of the fuller phrasing of dramatist, to get both the concepts done justice to in Playwright. Librettist? That's the text-writer, right? Hmmm. I would say it's reasonable to call that person a dramatist or playwright, even though it's not exactly common usage. Oh, I do have a question about categories, definitely! See, when I click on a category at the bottom of an article page, I get to a category page, if that's the right term. Then, how do I go on to find the parent? There's some way, I bet, but I cant figure it. It's been driving me crazy. Best,--Bishonen 16:04, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reply to additional post on my talk page:
--Francis Schonken 16:34, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Please make sure all English speaking people would experience "Dramatists" and "Playwrights" as covering the same. What I understood by now is that "Dramatist" is a posh term for "Playwright" in English.
 * In Dutch (my native language) a "librettist" is someone who derives a text for a musical production (Opera, etc...) from e.g. a play: a play is written by a playwright, while a libretto can be made by either a "composer" or the playwright him/herself (who then becomes librettist in addition to being a playwright) or a by a "third party" librettist. E.g. Janacek worked as well with librettos produced by the "original" playwright (such libretto is nearly never identical to the original play), with librettos produced by "third party" librettists, and with librettos he derived from plays (and other books) himself. If what you assume is true, then Janacek (and Wagner, etc...) could be categorized "Playwrights" (besides "Opera composers") - does that feel right to you - for me it still feels odd?
 * Regarding clicking on a "category" at the bottom of a "category" page: what opens then is the parent category you clicked. In fact the categories in the box below on a category page are all the (direct) parent categories. For "higher-up" parent categories you keep clicking on the Categories below in the category box, for every new category that opens, till you reach a "top" category. Now that's theory: categories are still in expansion, and major hick-ups occur. See also Graph/Tree comparison on categorization.

New idea
Re-reading all the stuff I suppose people will come up over and over again to create either a "playwrights" category, when "Dramatists" is deleted, and vice versa; also because of the possible and difficult to define overlap between the two terms I propose Category:Dramatists and playwrights to be created, replacing the "Dramatists" category, which can also have "librettists" as a subcategory (and "playwrights" if that is a significant subcategory).

Would that cover most of the pending/recurring issues?

--Francis Schonken 17:01, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Brilliant, Francis. You're absolutely right, we need to think ahead and create a durable cat, not one that's going to start deteriorating the minute you take your eyes off it.--Bishonen 17:21, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)