Category talk:Fundamental

This page is for fundamental knowledge from a general point of view. For maximum stability, the category should be independent of fashion, politics and subjective point of view. It should contain fundamental categories from other knowledge subsets to provide full coverage and good orientation in all other categories.

Contents

1 Refining number and wording of the "fundamental" categories

1.1 Links to articles vs. links to categories

2 Why?

3 Proposals

4 Minimalist Proposal

5 Imported discussion from Wikipedia:Categorization

6 Comprehensive Proposal

7 Let there be links

8 Proposal to fork a TOC page

9 From Wikipedia:Categories for deletion

10 Category:Technology not listed here?

11 Category:Fundamental is mis-named

Refining number and wording of the "fundamental" categories

This section has been refactored by Brianjd. Some of it was originally on Talk:Main page.

User:Robin Patterson: "... I agree with one contributor that we could benefit by looking at what other sites (Yahoo was mentioned; and Zeal (http://zeal.com/category/preview.jhtml?cid=302562) should not be overlooked) have done in devising exactly this sort of carve-up of the whole of human knowledge. I have some alternative spreads from other sites listed at http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Category. A look at their 2nd-level and 3rd-level subcategories is instructive too, because that leads to ideas about smaller categories that belong in two or more major threads (eg Scottish Schools is part of Education but is also part of Scotland)."

Beland: "Discussion of other ontologies has taken place before in Wikipedia talk:Categorization; in particular: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 3 and Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 1."

Here is the current state of the ontology for the Browse bar on the Main Page. It seems to have happened bottom-up with no oversight by anyone interested in categories. The major driver was the poor performance of the rendering of the main page. So the Wikipediatoc was replaced by 7 "fundamental" categories, followed by "Browse by category" which deliberately mirrored Wikipediatoc:

Browse Wikipedia - Article overviews - Alphabetical index - Other category schemes

For a category with no introduction, there is a default introduction: [[{{PAGENAME}}|See the overview article about {{PAGENAME}}]] (appears as See the overview article about Fundamental)

The major subject categories form a nice progression from concrete to abstract, and some articles are almost ready to be portals if they were to be transplanted to the category pages:

Nature - nice images. This one is ready to transplant into Category:Nature
Human only 2 images, could transplant intro and 1 image into Category:Human
Culture no images for Category:Culture
Society no images for Category:Human societies
Technology no images for Category:Technology
Abstraction no images. Used intro in Category:Abstraction

Ancheta Wis 09:59, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categorization is a science of its own. On the Main Page, we should stick to presenting the fundamental categories as well as a link to a portal for other ways to access Wikipedia articles. Template:Wikipediatoc is really not very useful, since it links to articles, not categories. Many of these articles are not good ways to find other related topics in that specific field.

That's the whole point of the category system. Wikipedia:Browse by category is better, but is too verbose for the Main Page, in my opinion. Instead, I suggest we limit ourselves to 7 categories on the Main Page . This also enforces some amount of self-discipline, in that we have to choose which are the really important ones, and structure things more systematically. --Eloquence *

Links to articles vs. links to categories

This [if they see category pages, they may give up and stop browsing] is a very dubious argument. The Main Page is chock-full of links to articles. The purpose of the categories is not to showcase articles, that's what the article of the day, anniversaries etc. are for. The purpose of the categories is to help our visitors find articles related to specific topics. This is quite obvious from the way they are presented. "They may just give up and stop browsing" is much more applicable to the old "Browse by topic" box, which was very misleading because it did not actually help in browsing by topic; it showed certain articles, some of which were quite poor and most of which were not particularly useful in finding other articles in that field. That is frustrating and confusing and likely to turn away newcomers.--Eloquence *

I do agree with your latter comments, but as the categories had been, I don't think it had been a good alternative. But with the recent fix of having the category pages include some basic information and pictures (which I didn't realize was going on), I think this was a very good solution.

However, as much as I think it is a clever fix, I think I should bring up a few disadvantages for which perhaps people here could think of workarounds:

1) the category pages are only sorted alphabetically, which makes it difficult to get a bird's eye view of what kind of pages exist as subcategories (while the main article page usually categorizes pages within the discipline by subject). Could the system be designed to allow the user to either see the page alphabetically or by subject, whichever way the user prefers?

2) By coming to the slightly elaborated category introductions, people may not realize that there IS a more elaborate article page for that category (even though there is a link to one on the page, they may think it is just a dummy link, for example), or even if they do, people may try to expand the category introduction, creating thereby two long versions which need every once in a while to be reconciled, with the category page being reduced.

3) Having the category introduction at the top, as much as I prefer it to nothing, does make it take a little while longer to find a subcategory if you are just browsing categories, since you have to scroll down...

One alternative solution might be to have something like (art/cat) following each item to allow people to jump to either the article or category (e.g., "Mathematics (art/cat)").

Also, I'd like to say I still think we could fit more categories onto the main page, just as Yahoo does, for example by including some small subcategories beneath (while linking to more)--When I first saw the changes, I felt like someone had come into a library and thrown out the card catalog computers (or moved them to the top floor), saying that we needed more room for newspapers! What good is a library, anyways, if it won't help a person know what's in it? (I'm also working on putting together a video tutorial right now, and having the main page shifting around doesn't help!) :) [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 06:02, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1) Categorization should be atomic. That means that you can't subcategorize any further. Whether the categories are listed alphabetically or not, you can't usefully list them by subject any deeper than they are already categorized. If you can, then you should think about your categorization scheme.

What do you mean by this? Categories can be divided and subdivided as narrowly as needed. If there are articles about each of the Olympic events, then put them in a category. If they write artices about each of the Olympic track and field events, then articles about each of the races for each medal, then make more specific categories to organize them. The top level categories on the Main Page should contain as many categories as possible -- but only as broad as will allow people to recognize which category contains the information they're looking for. GUllman 21:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2) This is a reasonable point (even though the argument about dummy links seems somewhat spurious). I suppose that it could be made clearer that there is a separate article on the category pages themselves; for example, the mathematics category could have a bold link at the bottom of the introduction "Read the Wikipedia article about mathematics".

3) That's why category intros should be no longer than one or two paragraphs. Please shorten any which go above that limit.

You can only fit so much information on the Main Page. There's really no substantial difference from a user perspective between clicking on a category page and clicking/scrolling to the category/article list at the bottom of the Main Page. In fact, now that we have direct category links at the top, in many cases you will get to your goal much faster. Whether the category bar should take more room can be debated, however, to be useful, that must always happen at the expense of the other dynamic content on the page - which, to be frank, is what keeps me and many others loading it every day, so we should be careful about substantial changes here.--Eloquence * 07:42, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

I've created Template:Catmore per your suggestion, it looks like this: Template:Catmore (i.e. it automatically inserts the page name). This could be put on the fundamental category pages. What do you think?--Eloquence *

Yes, each category should have a prominent link to the corresponding article in the main namespace. I was planning to do something similar, except my template would have been intended for use at the top, rather than the bottom, of the Category:Foo page, and would have said something like "This is an introduction to the [[Category]] '''Foo'''. There is also a more detailed [[article about Foo]]." Perhaps this part of the discussion should move to Wikipedia_talk:Browse by category? —AlanBarrett 17:25, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, admins rule wikipedia so they can toy around with the sanctioned Main Page. The best thing you should do is stay away from places where you are not given freedom of editing. -- Taku 19:50, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

The Main Page is split into 7 templates exactly for the purpose of making it editable to non-sysops while minimizing the risk of vandalism. All the templates are editable and the category bar will be, too, if we agree to use it. The change I made was announced on the talk page. If you feel that it is a bad change, you are free to participate in the discussion and give feedback. Consensus on matters like that is virtually impossible. That's why it is essential that all sides explain their points of view in rational arguments.--Eloquence *

The seven Browse topics at the top of the Main Page were obviously selected by a computer scientist/mathematician who believes the universe revolves around their field. Look at the choices that are given top billing: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy (and Technology). These seven Browse topics should lead you to any subject a user would be searching for. Instead, the Physics link only leads to subtopics within Physics (not topics that are related to Physics), the Mathematics to subtopics within Math (not all the topics that use Math), etc. Only a tiny percentage of knowledge links from here. I suggest placing the "More..." category system back on the Main Page again. GUllman 21:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. The notion that we can provide a balanced set of seven links that covers all of Wikipedia is extremely optimistic, given the current lack of a balanced article-ontology anywhere on wikipedia; the novelty of categories for most users; the lack of agreement on what categories are for, and which articles should be included in high-level categories; and the general sparsity of said high-level categories. +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The main page category browse bar is now a template: Template:Categorybrowsebar. Please suggest a better list of fundamental categories... -- The Anome 10:06, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that template should be inserted into the top screen-inch of Main while we hash this out.

We could start a discussion with the dmoz categories, a suitable ISO ontology, a discussion of what kind of 'fundamental' qualities we expect of this list (fundamental in the context of current WP content? of current high-quality content? of everything WPans know of in the universe? everything humans know of? in the context of the actual universe, despite variance in how much humans know about facets of that grand scheme? should these fundamental categories be 'maximally' distinct for some measure of distinction? parallel in structure? sufficiently diverse to ensure that every topic can be categorized under at least one of them? selected so as to minimize the number of topics/concepts belonging to more than one category?). +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Here is a proposal for the browsebar: the progression Category:Nature|Category:Human|Category:Technology|Category:Communication| Category:Reference|Category:Abstraction|Category:Wikipedia tells a story - beginning with Man's origins in Nature, Humans eventually gained the right to survive with Technology, starting with upright motion, tools, agriculture, writing, and other Communication, consolidating their knowledge under references such as Myth, Magic and Religion, eventually progressing to Science and more abstract views of the world. Ancheta Wis 21:50, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why?

Why do we need this category? What will it provide that an autogenerated list of categories with no parents will not? Heck, what will it provide that the list in Wikipedia:Categorization doesn't? grendel|khan 15:38, 2004 Jun 1 (UTC)

This category thing is new to me, but as a programmer I understand the appeal of having a 'root node'. For one thing, it's a good place to talk about what nodes should be direct children of the root. -- Crag 21:51, 2004 Jun 1 (UTC)

I can see the appeal, but there already exists an implicit root category that can be automatically generated (what categories have no parents?); until then, the list on Wikipedia:Categorization should suffice. Besides, very, very few categories should be parentless. An autogenerated list would aid in culling them. grendel|khan 03:02, 2004 Jun 2 (UTC)

I propose IMPLICIT root category, selected MANUALLY, not automatically. This root (one of the roots) should be independed from point of view (like main page), independed from where topic is learned (like academic disciplines), is it knowledge kind of science or kind of how-to. Actually it should be very short list of subcategories (up to ten), and moderate list of articles (from fundamental constants to fundamental religions). Kenny 08:28, 2004 Jun 2 (UTC)

I agree that it would be handy to have a generated list of parentless categories. I still think an explicit list would be worthwhile. As a static page it costs much less to generate than an automated list. Then the automated list would consist of Fundamental and a set of categories which need to be evaluated for adoption under some category. The cost of maintaining the static list will be extremely low since it will have so few children. So to answer the original question, the purpose of an explicit root node is documenting that its children really are fundamental categories. I don't understand what Kenny is proposing. -- Crag 23:06, 2004 Jun 3 (UTC)

I just realized that my point about generation cost is moot since the children of the Fundamental node cost just as much to find as the categories with no children. I still maintain that an explicit node has the value of documenting that the relationship between the root and fundamental categories is by design and not accidental. -- Crag 23:10, 2004 Jun 3 (UTC)

Sumamrizing and clarifying the reasons above:

Clearly a top level category organizing it all is needed.
Wikipedia:Categorization is to collect category projects and people working on them, and is not meant (right now) as a top level for knowlege.
The contents of Category:Orphaned categories clearly shows that automatically picking unparented categories would be nearly useless. Not only are not all unparented categories suited for a top level, but also many that are suitable are members of cycles of categories.

I sort of like the yahoo like summary including the top level categories and a few from the next level down. This can only be done as an article, really, with the category system underneath to complete it where there are too many to comfortably list. --ssd 13:34, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this is needed. If the fundamental categories have this as a parent, then all the categories appearing on Category:Orphaned categories are true orphans that need attention. Without this, the fundamentals would be comingled with the true orphans. older≠wiser 14:00, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Proposals

Please help decide what the user-friendly content of this page should look like, if any. Below are some proposals. (Is this redundant with Category:Main page and/or the Main Page?)

No, this is not redundant. The schemes may overlap, but they can co-exist, and as descussed below and elsewhere, there may be multiple ways of splitting up the world that are all valid and useful. There's no good reason to not support more than one of them here. --ssd 17:33, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Minimalist Proposal

Category:Reference

Imported discussion from Wikipedia:Categorization

I think there should be a top level category from which all other categories should be reached. Before someone goes and edits all the current orphaned categories, there should be some kind of consensus on what that top level category should be called. Any ideas?

Here are some current attempts at a top level category:

These categories should probably all go in a top level category. Most of these currently have no parent, or are the best top article in a cycle or something like that:

Or, perhaps rather than a top category, there should be a category article listing significant "top" categories in some kind of tree structure? (png? ascii art? java?)

I think there should be multiple "starting place" categories, since different people like to slice up the world into categories in different ways. They should all me members of Category:Starting_places or somesuch. --Beland 20:38, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree!! Would you care to enumerate a few such ways to slice up the world? --ssd 02:40, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Comprehensive Proposal

Wikipedia needs a useful TOC, and as said above (Ed: See Wikipedia_talk:Categorization), I consider categories to be a TOC building tool. To make the TOC useful, the top-level TOC categories should provide links to TOC subcategories and/or list-of categories and/or important articles in the category. I tried to make a TOC tree, and came up with the following. Note that top-level TOC categories are bound to be somewhat arbitrary and this is just one of possible approaches. OTOH, the second- and any third-level TOC categories should strive for perfection.

Should we (meaning me) do this? Will anybody help? If so, this should get its own page. Of course, before actually doing any of this, the TOC categories must be defined brilliantly - moving things will be a major pain. So, please comment and try to improve. Zocky

Not bad...there have been several attempts to create a top level category. A TOC article might also be a good alternative. --ssd 17:22, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This proposal is not logical, too overloaded and not practical. Kenny 08:06, 2004 Jun 13 (UTC)

I started linking these and I'm starting to think that Kenny may be right in that this isn't logical. I like the format, but the topics you have picked do not all align well with existing categories. --ssd 14:03, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please don't link these until there's some kind of consensus on them. I realize that they don't conform with the existing categories, but that is because they have a different purpose (that's why I call them TOC categories). They are supposed to provide a way to browse the encyclopedia by related articles, i.e. those that do/could/should have a "see-also" relationship. That's why they are called things like "Chemistry and Physics": if you are interested in the broad subject of physics, you will find the general articles on chemistry interesting, and vice versa. If you're looking for a specific star, you will also be interested in other articles on space.

Of course, I also realize that some of these probably are not logical. That's why we need discussion on this, and I think it should concentrate both on which TOC categories we want and what do we want in them. Zocky 03:37, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Let there be links

>>Why do we need this category? What will it provide that an autogenerated list of categories with no parents will not? Heck, what will it provide that the list in Wikipedia:Categorization doesn't?<<

An autogenerated list will not distinguish between genuinely fundamental categories and orphaned categories.. The list in Wikipedia:Categorization is getting very messy, as is the page itself. It would be very nice to have a clean page that would be easy for curious readers to use (as opposed to editors participating in the categorization projects). -- Beland 02:39, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

>> They should all me members of Category:Starting_places or somesuch.<<

Where somesuch might equal Wikipedia:Category_schemes. -- Beland 02:39, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

>> I agree!! Would you care to enumerate a few such ways to slice up the world? <<

Wikipedia:Category_schemes actually does a good job of that. -- Beland 02:39, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to fork a TOC page

This page seems to be settling down...

I propose we do the following:

Keep the mission of Category:Fundamental narrow - an automatic collector of properly top-level categories.
Keep the topical listing on the Main Page concise.
Create Category:TOC as a comprehensive, human-friendly guide to the most important or useful categories (from a navigational perspective). Perhaps the "More..." links on the Main Page could dump people to different parts thereof.

If Zocky's proposal were aligned more closely with the Main Page and were actually linked to real categories (or categories that should exist), it would probably be a good start.

Thoughts?

--Beland 05:07, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Categories for deletion

Moved from CfD (no consensus to delete):

Category:Fundamental edit here
Template:Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Fundamental

Category:Technology not listed here?

Category:Technology is not listed here because it is not fundamental. It is, by definition, invented by humans, and so belongs under Category:Humans. Brian j d | Why restrict HTML? | 08:50, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

Category:Fundamental is mis-named

I think that Category:Fundamental is mis-named. I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Category:Fundamental is mis-named, because fixing it seems to need wider input. —AlanBarrett 18:20, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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