Wikipedia talk:Understanding the English Wikipedia Category System

Question re analysis of Categorization of pages across namespaces
Re. Categorization of pages across namespaces:
 * Which namespaces will be object of this study? There are 28 non-virtual namespaces in English Wikipedia. The project proposal names two (main namespace and category namespace): will other namespaces be involved (e.g. Books: namespace, Wikipedia: namespace, Files: namespace, any of the Talk: namespaces)?
 * I hope to examine all those namespaces, but when I get to that part of the project, I will see. If it does not look like I will be able to examine all of them, I will post that on the project page, asking you all which namespaces you think are the most important to look at. At the moment I am thinking those might be: [main], category, Wikipedia, portal, and help. Libcub (talk) 21:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

On a related note: Categorization in category namespace refers to Categorization (also called "thesaurus", for example in Jakob Voss Collaborative thesaurus tagging the Wikipedia way v2: 2006-04-27) - will that organization or structured way to present information (which doesn't apply to categorization in any of the other namespaces) be part of the intended cross-namespace comparison (while, for instance, organizational constraints in category namespace may explain, at least in part, the nature of the differences between main and category namespace categorization)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't quite follow your first clause. Category:Categorization leads to a soft redirect to Category:Wikipedia categorization. I don't see a link to Categorization.


 * I don't understand your question. Can you rephrase? Thanks! Libcub (talk) 21:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Categorization in category namespace refers to is on a conceptual level to be understood as resulting in a category tree organisation (see Categorization). That category tree organisation (which is something only happening in category namespace) is a constraint to be reckoned with when applying categorization in category namespace (a constraint not existing when applying categorization in other namespaces)
 * At m:Grants:IEG/Understanding the English Wikipedia Category System a few tables are given showing the difference of how a similar page in main and in category namespace is categorized differently depending on namespace. The category tree organization constraint is the most evident reason why in category namespace the categorization would be different. How is that approached in the research project? --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:43, 3 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Although it can be helpful to view the English Wikipedia category system as a tree structure, in practice it isn't. There are many loops, orphans, and other factors that come into play here. This is in principle true of all namespaces, although there may be some where the category system is truly a tree structure. Investigating the overall mathematical structure of the category system was not something I included in the grant proposal, although I do think it would be very interesting to look at. I doubt I will have time in this round to do that investigation, but I do hope that either I can do it in a later phase or that someone else will take this on. [Sorry to be so late is responding. I have been ill off and on for the last 6 weeks. Also, I had set up email notifications, but did not get notified of your comments, I don't know why this seems to work on Meta, not not en:wp.] Libcub (talk) 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Wishing you the best with health and (time) management issues,
 * 1) Re. "tree": "thesaurus" would be the correct term, see Figure 7, p. 5 of the J. Voss piece I mentioned earlier (same figure, on the left shows "classification" which would be more litterally a "tree" system) - Architects may call the same a "semilattice", see last figure on this page, with a "tree" structure pictured above. The first picture used in Categorization is of course that of a "thesaurus" or "semilattice", not that of a tree.
 * 2) Sorry for the misnomer in the guideline section title, however that was not what I was referring to. I was referring to the word organization: in category namespace categorization is a tool to organize categories in a grid, which is different from the "defining" principle, see WP:CATDEF, which is (...should be) how categories are applied in main (article) namespace. In short:
 * 3) * In category namespace categorization is used to link categories in a grid. Name that grid "tree" or more correctly "thesaurus" or "semilattice" — whatever — but in category namespace categorization is about the organization of that grid.
 * 4) *In main namespace it's largely about characterizing the topic of an article, which doesn't refer as such to the act of organizing qualifiers in a grid.
 * 5) Question remains, how do you intend to compare what is an organized grid in one namespace with what should be "a list of defining characteristics" in another namespace (my first intuition is that such comparison doesn't make too much sense, seen the different categorization dynamics in these two namespaces — throwing mathematics at it was certainly not what I was hinting at, imho that makes even less sense — my question is how, in a conceptual sense, do you intend to compare two things that are quite different in nature?)
 * I do not make assumptions on how categorization has played out in different namespaces. (Although my own intuition is that the category systems in different namespaces do not match up neatly to structures/purposes such as those you suggest, even when categorization guidelines try to shape them along those lines.) Also, one of the pieces of this phase of the research is to look at categorization guidelines, and see how closely they are followed in practice. Once we know the basic characteristics, research can then investigate different parts of the category system (such as use in different namespaces, but also categorization loops, etc.) in ways that make sense to those parts. Libcub (talk) 20:04, 9 September 2014 (UTC)


 * 1) Other news: Obiwankenobi appears to be on a longer wikibreak announced two days ago, so I don't know whether he'll take up  on your question soon
 * 2) If you have skype, I'd be glad to have a chat sometime. "Email this user" on my user page can be used e.g. for communicating your skype alias. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

May interest you
User:DexDor/Namespaces and categories

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:58, 29 September 2014 (UTC)