Talk:WikiProject:Categories and Tags

From WikiIndex

[edit] Subject-matter categories

I was looking for subject-matter categories, so as to offer a link from a newish Wikia. This is the nearest I could find (in a mere 10 minutes) to a discussion of the subject.

There are 1200 "wanted categories", many of them having 3 or more links and many looking like subject-matter categories. Most of them would become "uncategorized categories" as soon as one gave them a word of text (and/or preferably a parent category), to join the current mere 22 officially uncategorized. They would gain the small advantage of being ordered alphabetically.

Is that where one should start?

Wikia's category listings - currently under 70 covering over 2,000 Wikia sites - could give a guide if anyone was keen to organise the subject-matter categories but wasn't clear how to go about it.

Robin Patterson 17:02, 21 April 2007 (PDT)

[edit] a list of all topics

Most wiki talk about several closely-related topics. Is there a way to get a list of all the wiki topics we've used at WikiIndex so far? (Is Robin Patterson searching for the same thing?) That way, when I add a new wiki to the wikiindex, I can scan through the list of topics and pick out all the ones that apply to this wiki.

I thought that the page Category:Wiki Topic is such a list of all those topics -- but I see a few categories such as Category: Game development that are not listed there.

On the one hand, I'm tempted to slap the Category: Wiki Topic tag on all such wiki topic pages, so they will be listed there.

On the other hand, perhaps we're trying to do things like Wikipedia. At Wikipedia, if a category has a tag on it, then that tag is assumed to apply to all subcategories. So, since Category: Game development is a subcategory of Category: Programming, and Category: Programming is a subcategory of Category: Software, and Category: Software is a subcategory of Category: Computing, and Category: Computing is a subcategory of Category: Information Technology, and Category: Information Technology is a subcategory of Category: Technology, and since Category: Technology already has the Category: Wiki Topic tag, therefore Category: Game development (and all those other sub-topics of Category: Technology) doesn't need the Category: Wiki Topic tag.

But if we do things the Wikipedia way -- in a strict hierarchy, rather than a flat tag space -- how do I get a list of all the wiki topics we've used at Wikiindex so far? --DavidCary 13:36, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps use Special:Categories? And then ignore some categories -- such as Category:Active administrators of this wiki -- that are never the topic of discussion at other wiki? --DavidCary 13:44, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

The main problem with Special:Categories is that you can't jump to different alphabetical sections. I had assumed that categories were hierarchical, and that's how I've been proceeding. But, of course, I could be wrong. Also, I had assumed that Category:Wiki Topic was only for categories that had not yet been plugged into the hierarchy, so I had removed that category if I made a category into a sub-cat of another. --MarvelZuvembie 19:44, 13 October 2008 (EDT)