Wikisource:Proposed deletions/Archives/2011-12

=Kept=

EB1911 category hierarchy
{{closed|1= Keep but rework, Hesperian's summary and recommended action drew only one other comment, for a potential solution (new technology). Hesperian has added the task to his "to do" list and indicates he will publicly address anything that appear untenable. Jeepday (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC) |text= The EB1911 category hierarchy contains over two hundred categories of the form Category:EB1911:Countries:Asia:Russia.

I had always assumed that this isolated and independent category structure reproduced a hierarchy published as part of EB1911 itself; that is, I had thought that the category hierarchy was a rendering of source content. That would make it perfectly acceptable; but, as I have recently discovered, this is not the case. Like the rest of our category system, it is a hierarchy devised and implemented by Wikisource contributors to aid in navigation.

My opinion is that the EB1911 category hierarchy is a classic example of a Walled Garden. It functions to isolate EB1911 articles from the standard community-wide category tree, preventing them from sitting alongside other works. Specifically:
 * 1) It duplicates our community wide category structures. Articles that ought to be enriching Category:Russia are instead hidden away in Category:EB1911:Countries:Asia:Russia.
 * 2) It is isolated from our community wide structures. Category:EB1911:Countries:Asia:Russia is not a subcategory of, or otherwise accessible from, Category:Russia, so that one cannot locate works about Russia without searching on both sides of the wall.
 * 3) It uses category names that are thoroughly at odds with our wider naming conventions, and this too functions to isolate this project from the rest of Wikisource.

I can see several partial solutions, but I think the best and only complete solution is to merge each EB1911 category into its corresponding community-wide category. If it is agreed that this should be done, I will volunteer to undertake the task.

Hesperian 02:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm in favour (with respect to reference material) of any navigational structure that helps readers find the articles they want on the topics they want, without clairvoyance and in a way usefully complementary to using search. I would certainly see a renaming of Category:EB1911:People:Individuals:Europe:Britain:Mathematicians to a subcategory of Category:Mathematicians as a step in the right direction. Since at present it isn't a subcategory there (your #2) something should be done. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Merge into existing category structure as per proposal, and remove duplicates.— billinghurst  sDrewth  12:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I oppose the proposed combination of deletion and merger on the ground that the categories dedicated to EB1911 make it possible to browse articles that are both (a) on mathematics and (b) from EB1911. From what I understand, the main Wikisource category structure is for complete works rather than for parts of works. The category structure dedicated to EB1911 should isolate the individual EB1911 articles from other Wikisource material. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A couple of comments. If there is a clear statement of what the category system is for, it isn't at Categories or any other policy page I can easily find. Second, starting from the view, which is perhaps accepted widely, that the category system mainly is for classifying texts, it seems hard to construct an accepted view of how the system should be fashioned to enable the reader to browse easily by topic. There are various putative solutions based on namespaces, but I wouldn't see the "intersection" approach as anything like ideal. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I oppose any deletions or removal of duplicates. I think a community-wide system for classifying EB1911 articles would be desirable, but also a system specific to EB1911 is desirable so it can be examined in isolation.  My preference would be to leave the existing category structure in place, and just put the EB1911 categories into the appropriate community-wide categories, that is Category:EB1911:Countries:Asia:Russia can go into Category:Russia in addition to Category:EB1911:Countries:Asia. I have done this for Russia. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with the spirit of this argument, but it needs shaking up. It is a neat solution to have the EB1911 articles packaged separately, but still linked tightly to the main category tree. However, the naming is not good - it would be better to have a category name like "Category:Russia in EB1911". It is totally unnecessary to specify the full root of the category: that is done by the categorisation of the category itself.
 * In my ideal scheme, we would have "C:Asia", with the subcat "C:Russia", with the subcat "C:Russia in EB1911", which is also in the category "C:Asia in EB911". Thus it is linked tightly to the main category tree. It also should not invent a whole new tree structure, such as Countries->Asia->Russia. Keep it the same as what we already have: Science->Earth Sciences->Geography->Asia->Russia. Each can then have the relevant companion subcategory, such as "C:Geography in EB1911". This way, all EB1911 categories can be easily found by looking in the "normal" category for the subject, which is the entire point of the category system! Inductiveload— talk/contribs  03:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * My concerns relate to the treatment of EB1911 as separate and in isolation, especially when there are technical means to achieve the best of both worlds. Looking at m:Help:Category it discusses Extensions that are able to undertake the actions that are of interest, and in seemingly a more reliable and efficient means, and that keeps our collection as a whole. I agree that someone should be able to browse EB1911 articles by category, I don't think that a separate hierarchy is the means to achieve that aim. — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Having mulled this over, I come down as delete; because the arguments to keep seem to me not to scale. It would be much better to have some tools to sort by reference source (something on the toolserver). As soon as we have a dozen general reference sources or encyclopedias posted here, we would be talking about the need to create a dozen versions each time a "subcategory" was created, one of the most basic operations on the category tree. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:58, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per above arguments—having this system isolates EB articles extensively. —innotata 17:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge and delete. In the absence of a category intersection extension, I support inductiveload's parallel hierarchy solution, but I'd prefer the extension. —Spangineer{{sup|wp}} (háblame) 17:39, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep but rename, as InductiveLoad, Category:Geology will easier to use if we have a sub-category: Category:Geology in Popular Science Monthly and such category for each voluminous periodical or encyclopedia, the problem with merging all articles in cat:Geology is that the category will be full of small articles, bigger works as text books will be lost among hundred of smaller works. Beside that, the actual naming scheme is too unusual, we can get the hierarchical view by the category hierarchy. Perhaps things will change with a true category intersection, but actually we haven't it. If EB 1911 maintainer are reluctant to rename the category, we can do only the first step, insert all EB 1911 category into our hierarchy. (add Category:Geology to Category:EB1911:Science:Geology, some are done but not all.) Phe (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

This has been here over a year now. I won't close it because I proposed it in the first place. But what I see here is very strong support for elimination of the naming scheme (8-0 support), and no consensus for elimination of separate EB1911 categories (5-4 split). Therefore I intend to put category renaming on my list of things to do, and will come back here with a separate request should I come across any EB1911 categories that I hold to be untenable. It would be good if someone would endorse my reasoning and close this discussion. Hesperian 23:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

New technology
Could a more effective method now be developed with category intersection and the DynamicPageList extension? If all EB1911 pages were in category "EB1911 articles", and in the relevant topic category (eg "Russia"), then a simple intersection of the two categories is all that is required to find what would otherwise be the contents of "EB1911:Russia". Having full-length works swamped by articles in "Russia" is still an issue, however. Inductiveload—talk/contribs  22:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC) }}

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