GuildWiki talk:Categories

This is discussion about categorizing in general, not bound to ANY category, but how to make a category-tree in general.

The Uber Categories
(merged from User:Ollj, and yes, im aware of the irony of this category in relation to the discussion below)

Please stop making super categories that are a) not well defined, and b) could contain the entire content of this site. What defines an item as being "PvE"? All the arenas of PvP are in the PvE world. You can adventure in the PvE world to enhance your PvP character. Same thing for Gameplay. I would think that an article that has nothing to do with gameplay in Guild Wars would not be in a wiki about Guild Wars. :)

Here's a simple criteria for categorization:
 * Will items that belong to this category be EASILY identifiable as belonging to it? i.e. a Mahgo Hydra IS a Hydra, and a Hydra IS a beast in Bestiary. Simple. A Dragon Sword IS a sword and a Sword IS a weapon and a weapon IS an item.
 * Could the item-category relation be broken into reasonable sub-categories. All objects in the game are items, so obviously we need to break-down items into smaller sub groups.
 * Is the category necessary? A category for "Guild Wars" articles would be completely meaningless. Because it is ASSUMED that everything here is about Guild Wars.

Thanks. --Karlos 07:18, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)

yeah. the PvE category has gone too far and i myself found some categories that might be unnecessary...


 * If you find categories that seem too big, too small or too vague. Discuss it in the discussion page or mark them for deletion. --Karlos 07:34, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)

Category: What the fuck?
(merged from User:Ollj, he categorized most pages and created Category:WTF as temporary category to sort categories, category:Item as typo...)

What are you doing Ollj? I've just gone to recent changes and the page is filled with categories. Category:WTF being one of them. Category:Item being another. There is already a category for items. What the hell are you playing at?? I really don't know what to do about you, you just seem to think you can do whatever the hell you like, and that your way is best. Well, so far I've seen no evidence to suggest this. 09:31, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)

Im actually tidiing up by categories. I was going trough the categories and found a lot of doubled and curious ones. like "category:none" so while going trough them i put those in category:WTF

Well please dont do this. If you can't put them into a category straight away then don't do it. I appreciate that some of the changes you make are worthwhile, it's just very hard to filter them out from all the wrong ones you make. 09:55, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Ok, one obvious problem here is that you keep categorizing things that have to do with the topic as bieng items in the topic. For example, you classified block and attribute point as being part of the skills category. They are NOT part of the skills category. Only Skills should be part of the Skills category. The fact that somehting has to do with something else does not mean it is an item in that category.
 * I storngly recommned you stop this categorization process you have embarked upon and talk about the categories you envision. I sense a gap between what you think is the category layout and what most of us think it is. I also sense, quite frankly that you should try and limit your submitted daily changes to a number like 50 or something. Once you've made 50 changes. Stop and come back next day and see how they hold up. Right now, quite frankly, I fell i must check every edit and change you make. Not because I think you are evil, :) but because I feel you do not know what you are doing half the time. --Karlos 17:06, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Part of the sorting progress is to first put everytrhing into global groups and than go trough those to sort it into smaller groups. You just dont know hpw ti cal lthe smaller groups unless you see all the content in one big group. Some global groups are Skills, Items, Locations, NPC ..., their content goes into sub-categories (or into something like "*-related") in the next step, that starts now.Ollj


 * No, this is not how the categorization process is going. If you want to build categories from the top-down then you have to discuss it with us, the rest of the contributors and authors. You are trying to categorize the entire site. Do you not think we should have a say? Some say? Please, list those major categories in here or some related talk page and let us talk about this. I would like to see what your vision is because right now you are not making a lot of sense. "Infusion" is not a "Mission" and "Avoiding Scams" is not related to items it is related to either a guide on being new to the game or a guide on how to play the game. It is this specific issue of me seeing things differently than you that means that this is a bad category. A good category is one that is clear to almost everyone. I highly doubt you'd get three other users to say: Yeah, Infusion is a mission and block is a skill. --Karlos 19:45, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)

Categories that need some work:
This categories need some work
 * they contain some entries that are only "related to" this category, but dont belong in it#
 * they are stub-status or contain pages that should be stub status, but are not marked as stub.
 * they contain pages that need to be merged or deleted (wrong name) or "disambing"
 * they contain sub-categories that just dont belong there or have the wrong category themself.

before changing this categories or their pages/categories, discuss it in the categories discussion.
 * Category:Skills
 * Category:NPCs
 * Category:Locations
 * Category:Items
 * Category:Warriors
 * Category:Monks
 * Category:Rangers
 * Category:Mesmers
 * Category:Elementalists
 * Category:Necromancers

Locational Categories
Is it worthwhile to have categories for each explorable region, city etc? i can see a use if you are planning on say exploring flame temple corridor area and are curious as to what things may be found there (im envisaging a "wow didnt know you could get that elite skill there" kinda response). maybe this sort of information should be inserted into the actual explorable region article ... dunno, im kinda in two minds about these kind of categories. --Crusty 10:59, 19 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * I think it should go into the location article. I don't see what advantage a category would have.  --Fyren 11:12, 19 Aug 2005 (EST)

General Categorization
In short, I think our categorization sucks. Take skills, for instance. Gash is in the categories Swordsmanship, Warrior Skills, Sword Attack, and Skills. But then, Swordsmanship and Sword Attack are subcategories of Warrior Skills. Instead of a nice tree structure we end up with spaghetti. Most of the category "sets" (skills, locations, NPCs, items) have this same problem.

So, I think a tree structure is nice. An article can be part of multiple trees but shouldn't be in the same tree more than once. Here's an example of how to modify it for skills using two separate trees:

There was already a suggestion... somewhere... for items (can someone link to it?). For locations, it's probably easy:


 * Locations
 * City
 * Outpost
 * Mission Outpost
 * Arenas
 * Explorable Area
 * Non-areas (for things like Ascalon Settlement which are locations but not their own zone, maybe also Orr which is a location but not somewhere you can go)

I haven't given the other "top level" categories much consideration, but they should be easy (or not messed up already, hopefully).

--Fyren 08:54, 20 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * This sounds like a great idea, on paper. However, the current system has some major advantages. The subcategory "Tree" structure already exists, and it's at the top of the page, meaning that if you want to see "Strength Skills" from "Warrior Skills" it's an easy click already. However, if you need a general listing of every warrior skill (and it does come in handy), the "Tree" structure doesn't cut it. The subcategories work fine, as is, and I believe that Wikipedia works the same way, for the same reason. --Talrath Stormcrush 14:41, 21 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * I thought about that. I didn't suggest this till after Cloak of Letters brought up making pages like Monk Skills Quick Reference.  A page like that is only slightly less useful then the category if you just want a plain, pure list of all skills for a profession and much more useful for other purposes.  --Fyren 15:26, 21 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Hrmm. That does indeed solve the "I want everything on a single page" problem... But at the same time, that solution is big and quite ugly. It also triggers a luddite alert in my head: That list is user created and maintained. As much as it is easy, more reliable, and more centralised, it is also redundant and non-automated. Also, as little use for it as there is, that will not allow a comprehensive "Skills" list: The page would be even more huge, unweildy, and redundant than the profession based quick reference pages. --Talrath Stormcrush 15:43, 21 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * I'm pretty late coming back to this discussion, but Wikipedia doesn't work that way. They implement a tree with articles as the leaves.  If you mean a list of ALL skills by "comprehensive skill list," I don't think that's useful at all.  If you really wanted one, you could simply include the individual references.  All in all, it's always going to be worse than looking at the PvP builder in game.  --Fyren 02:15, 8 Sep 2005 (EST)

Bueller? Bueller? --Fyren 02:52, 12 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * I think sacrificing a little convience for the sake of structure is ok. Besides, I can't think of a reason to have all of the skills listed on 1 page, unless to compare them, which the categories can not be of any help anyway. but wasn't there an arguement about how skills that don't link to any attributes should be categorized, was that arguement settled? --Thundergrace 01:35, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * Not really. Ollj placed them in "profession General," Talrath's new template (which I hate, heh) places them in "No Attribute," and I'd prefer "profession Unlinked Skills."  --Fyren 02:50, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * So I guess this restructuring will have to wait until that arguement is settled then? --Thundergrace 03:00, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * To be honest, unless more people speak up, I'm going to implement my way soon. I brought these things up to get them decided before I did a pass through all the skills again, but the discussion didn't go anywhere and I got lazy.  The two main things are this category restructuring and the new skill effects categories over at GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting/Skills.  --Fyren 03:09, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Fyren, I agree with your way and have from the start of my contributions. Unfortunately, many people see categories as lists, and want to add "Skill X" to "Category:Skills" so that it will show up on the skills page. While I was opposed to it no one seemed to really agree. I think the best way would be to maintain manual lists of skills and correct categories alongside each other. If you want to see every skill in the game then they should be on Skill list or Skills or something. If you want to see the correct ontological organisation of skill articles into categories you should go to Category:Skills.
 * Equally, I prefer the old skill template(s) still. :) 23:24, 15 Sep 2005 (EST)

I agree with this, but the root of both trees there should be the same Category:Skills. A "Category:Skill Types" implies something that would have Shouts, Stances, etc as members rather than subcategories. --64.186.172.227 10:24, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

I'm going to start implementing changes toward the above left tree structure. --Rezyk 08:24, 30 October 2005 (EST)
 * Someone once suggested just putting the non-linked skills into the skills category instead of general, which seems like a good idea. --Fyren 18:34, 31 October 2005 (EST)
 * Sounds good to me. --Rezyk 18:41, 31 October 2005 (EST)
 * It is done! --Rezyk 20:11, 2 November 2005 (EST)

Shall we now remove " " from Template:Skill begin? --Rezyk 20:11, 2 November 2005 (EST)


 * Ha. You should have done that first.  If you remove it from the template, you still have to make at least a null edit to the articles to actually apply the category change from the template edit.  --Fyren 20:37, 2 November 2005 (EST)


 * Hmm.. I was hoping that purging the articles would do the trick. Time to find out.. --Rezyk 13:15, 3 November 2005 (EST)


 * >_<  --Rezyk 13:26, 3 November 2005 (EST)

Description and explaination articles
Currently there are categories that each contains articles that explain or describe that very category. For example, Mission is under Category:Missions. Some of them probably would be better placed in Category:Slang & Terminology, like Boss which is under Category:Bosses right now. There are also articles like Preparation in Category:Ranger Skills, which I think should not be in any categories, or maybe it also belongs in slang & term too? --Thundergrace 02:55, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Welcome to Ollj's world of categorization. I removed the categories from the pages and I'll link to and from their same-named categories.  Categories have an "is-a" (or "does-this" or whatever for verb phrases) relationship with their articles, so you're right that they shouldn't be there.  Putting preparations in S&T is a little iffy, it is terminology but not really like most of the other things in the category.  --Fyren 03:09, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Wow you are fast! Thank you! I think there are others, needed to be hunted down. BTW, can Category:Preparation be changed into plural? (or should it?) --Thundergrace 03:31, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Yeah, they should all also be plural. I was going to do it later, since... that's a really boring change.  --Fyren 03:34, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * What about all the creature ones? I believe most of the creatures have an explanation article that links to the categories also.  It always struck me as strange, but it seemed to be the way it was so I continued it with any that I created.  --Rainith 03:57, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Not sure which articles you mean. Give us an example?  --Fyren 04:12, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * I think he meant the subcategories of Category:Bestiary (or should it be bestiaries?:P). For example Behemoth in Category:Behemoths. I think these articles should be moved to the parent category, in this example Bestiary. But that's a lot of articles that need to be changed, perhaps some consensus would have to be reached before making such change. I wouldn't want anyone (especially myself) to make these changes only to see them reverted back. --Thundergrace 04:42, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * I think you got what I meant Thundergrace. I meant we have Charr listed in Category:Charr, Worm (Species) in Category:Worms, etc... If we're going to move the Defination & Explanation articles out of the Categories, then these should go too.  --Rainith 04:47, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Argh, someone should've told me that when I was tidying up the Bestiary. I've just put all those species entries into the subcategories... ;) --Eightyfour-onesevenfive 07:43, 14 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * I agree. As long as article links to category and category links to article, there's no need to categoryize a mission as a mission. I had been upholding it only as a matter of course because that seemed to be the prevalent design. --Karlos 08:57, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Is there any way to redirect from these articles to the corresponding categories? --Thundergrace 17:05, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * Redirect? you mean when user clicks on mission we take him to category:missions instead? --Karlos 21:30, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * I mean when user enter "missions" and press Go he gets category:missions instead of an article. --Thundergrace 23:58, 13 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * That's not a good idea for two reasons. The first you probably noticed yourself, if you redirect like that, the category contents don't show up.  Second, categories are not articles, so the user would be faced with a sentence like "this is a list of all the missions" and then the list.  Mission/missions should be an article about what a mission is.  It should also link to the overviews page.  --Fyren 01:49, 14 Sep 2005 (EST)
 * Well some of these definition articles are very short, only 2 or 3 lines, so I figured might as well put the definition in the category pages. But nevermind, wiki doesn't work that way it seems. --Thundergrace 07:32, 14 Sep 2005 (EST)

Category and Article Counterparts
We have, for example, Sword and Category:Swords. Right now this is handled in different ways. Sometimes the article is in the category, sometimes the article is in the category's parent category, and sometimes the article is only linked in the category text. Placing the article in the parent category is probably the worst idea of the three. We can place the article at the head of its own category by doing. If we care about categorizing every page this is probably better than leaving the article somewhere in the middle of its other members. --Fyren 11:27, 27 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * I think we collectively need to reach the understanding that Categories are for all things of that type and that's IT. So, it's not for all things related or all things considered. :) So, Category:Swords should have all the swords in the game, nothing more, nothing less. The article "Sword" is obviously not a sword in the game. It is already reference in the Category's intro so there is no NEED to list it, even at the top. Now, what category is "Sword"? It could "Definitions" it could be that "Game Env" we talked about somewhere else.. But it is not a sword. --Karlos 18:45, 27 Sep 2005 (EST)


 * Category:Categories maybe? Then all articles that have corresponding categories of the same name could go in there.  Just a thought.  --Rainith 01:18, 28 Sep 2005 (EST)

Breaking down categories that have 200+ articles?
This mostly concerns categories that also have sub-categories.

While I personally don't mind browsing pages when certain thing gets too long, it can be quite counter-intuitive to view Category:Humans and realize there are more sub-categories on the next page (especially as it states "There are 2 subcategories to this category.").

Thus I suggest for super-categories (those that contain sub-cats) who has more than 200 articles, we make a conscious effort to find logical sub-categories to create and factor the super-category. -PanSola 02:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that if we do something like that we could end up invalidating the reason for categories in the first place. I agree that it can be unwieldy to navigate Category:Humans or Category:NPCs, but the categories do make sense.  If we start throwing in arbitrary things like Category:Men and Category:Women, what good is that going to do?  We'll just end up with another category to have to go into, and remember with the release of the next chapter, the categories are just going to get more filled up.  --Rainith 11:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Note that I said logical sub-categories', thus working around the arbitrary stuff you fear. I'm not forcing big categories to be broken down if the only way to break them down furthuer is by arbitrary means.  -PanSola 16:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)