Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Categorization/Archive 1

Deghettoization algorithm
I'm not sure I understand the algorithm. Why should Sue be in Category:American poets but not in Category:American writers? --GRuban (talk) 18:24, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Because she's in several diffusing subcats of American writers - such as and . American writers right now is a mess, and the general way in which people are diffused out of it, and into which subcats, is not really resolved, so you're also seeing greater confusion in the tree as it stands right now. If you look at  that's a bit of a better example, as that tree has been fully diffused already. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:26, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But isn't she similarly in several diffusing subcats of American poets? Specifically Category:American women poets, Category:African-American poets, and, of course, Category:African-American women poets? What makes the difference? --GRuban (talk) 18:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the world of non-diffusing categories. All of those cats, since they are gender/ethnic cats, are non-diffusing - which means, membership in them should not preclude membership in the parent. The trick is, what if the parent is fully diffused?  is again an example - just because you're in  doesn't mean you bubble up to  - or you can think, ok, we do bubble up, but then we get diffused afterwards, say to a state-specific category for example. When you intersect multiple non-diffusing facets, like African-American + women, then you need to bubble up to all of the adjectives individually, in a way - that's why she's in so many poets cats. Tricky, right? What are the chances that your average editor will get this right? OTOH, if these gendered/ethnic/sexuality cats aren't non-diffusing, then NY times articles get written. Quite the catch-22 if you ask me...We Didn't Start the Fire comes to mind... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:37, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Where, in Azathoth's name, is this unspeakable nightmare explained? Please link to it prominently in the algorithm section. I can't believe I'm the only one that would be confused by this. --GRuban (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No - in fact, most people are, so what they do is, they just diffuse. It's easier. And then, NY times articles get written. The basics are laid out in WP:EGRS (around non-diffusing, but it's poorly explained), and some in WP:Categorization - but the specifics of the non-sexist/non-racist algorithm I laid out have not, IMHO, been elaborated before in such detail - which is why I developed that in the first place - to illustrate how hard it actually is. But that's an extreme example - I've just been deghettoizing the "women mathematicians" tree, it wasn't that bad, probably took me an hour to do 30 bios or so. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2013 (UTC)