Category talk:Wikipedia indexes

Background

This category was originally located at Category:Topical indexes. Please see Category talk:Topical indexes for additional discussion/comments. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

What's the point of this whole alternate categorization system?

Wikipedia already has a categorization system for articles: see Wikipedia:Categorization. What in the world is the point of creating this alternate system, and the duplication of effort entailed therein? — Teemu Leisti (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Damned good question. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not the alternate system. Categories are the new kids on the block. The category system isn't actually part of the encyclopedia itself. It doesn't always get ported with it. Lists are articles and are therefore always included, and always have been.

The list system predates the category system, and has always included general topics lists. Indexes are one of the two main types of general topics list. Previously, the indexes were called "List of subject topics" or "List of subject-related topics". When the category system was created, it was decided to keep lists. Some editors prefer to work with lists, others prefer categories. There has been conflict between the two groups ever since the category system was introduced. Eventually, a guideline concerning the conflict was written – see WP:CLN.

Why two systems? They both have strengths, and they both have weaknesses. And, they both have potential beyond the other type. That's the best reason to keep general topics lists - we have yet to apply the available technologies to them.

The category system has some serious design limitations. The content of categories (the tags) is decentralized and auto-generated – it can't be edited directly. The content of lists on the other hand is centralized, and fully customizable. Being centralized, with history support, makes lists more suitable for tracking the articles of entire subjects. For this reason (and others) the math department makes extensive use of general topics lists.

The two systems tend to leapfrog each other. The mathematics department has developed a way to use categories to facilitate comprehensive lists, for instance. Further innovations are inevitable.

I hope this sheds some light on the situation.

For more details, please see WP:CLN. The Transhumanist 21:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

OK then. Teemu Leisti (talk) 19:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Naming conventions

If consensus is to keep these collection of lists as a useful navigation aid (which I think is still an open question), it needs a naming convention. The most obvious, since some entries in any given index may be articles and some may not be, and they are indexes, not usual list articles:

• Default: Index of subject topics
• If awkward and a one-word subject: Index of subject-related topics
• If awkward and a multi-word subject: Index of topics related to subject
• Categories: named the same, but pluralized as "Indexes".

The one- vs. multi-word distinction: A name like "Index of Irish American-related topics" is inherently ambiguous; use "Index of topics related to Irish Americans", since it's not an index of Irish topics that are American-related (which is actually a list one could easily make). Even when not very ambiguous, people with different style guides (or lack thereof but strong opinions) will editwar over hyphenation, so just avoid "Index of word1 word2-related topics" constructions.

I'd almost prefer "Index of topics relating to subject", as a nitpick, but let's keep it simple.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This is the wrong venue for discussing or establishing list naming conventions. That's what the list guidelines discussion pages are for. The list guidelines are part of Wikipedia's Manual of Style. We can't change MOS here. The Transhumanist 21:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

RfC on indexes

I've just encountered these indexes for the first time and was massively surprised. Like Teemu Leisti and Stanton McCandlish, above, I'm very concerned that they're a duplication of effort and offer nothing over the category system. If there are problems with categories, I believe that they should be solved with better categorization, not the painstaking quasi-duplication of categories by hand. For that reason, I'm requesting comments on the whole notion of indexes. -- Hex [^t/_c] 09:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The short version is: It's complicated, as they've existed since the beginning. We like lists/workflow/organization!

1. The longer version is:
   • These are somewhat similar to: Category:Lists of lists, and disambiguation pages. (In that they're not ever going to become Featured content, which all 'proper' articles/lists can be). Eg. Lists of mathematics topics was a Featured List from 2005–2007 (until someone attempted to use it in a reverse-psychology maneuver (intended to support the existence of indexes/outlines/listsoflists/etc) that went horribly wrong, and aggravated many math editors).
   • Categories are: 1) often ignored/unknown by readers, 2) are hard to search through, 3) can't contain redlinks. Hence lists often get made. (WP:CLN etc)
   • In the past, Indexes were kept (and kept in mainspace) when placed through AFD processes. However, recently a few of the larger sets have been moved to WikiProject sub-space, eg in May/June of 2011, all of the Index of mathematics articles (x) were moved from mainspace into projectspace (they're updated regularly by MathBot, and were in mainspace since at least 2005).
   • There's a minor overlap with Wikipedia:Requested articles, although those are often more usefully structured, eg Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics
2. Please pick good examples. If this turns into a long RfC, please try to use the best examples, instead of the worst. It's easy to pick at runts/flaws, and it's useful to think about longterm goals/ideals. Plus they're not all "indexes" in the same way (eg List of plate tectonics topics doesn't know what it is, and there are a few different types of philosophy index. etc). -- I'd suggest using these: Index of law articles, List of mathematicians (A), Index of sociology articles, List of plasma (physics) articles. Possibly even better examples exist? (with 'better' defined as: extensive, up-to-date, and using redlinks).

I'd be generally supportive of moving these Indexes into WikiProject subspace, as they're clearly more editor-oriented. I'd want to make it clear that this should not be used as precedent to move the other types of "navigational page" (lists of lists, outlines, certain types of timeline, glossaries, etc) out of mainspace, as they're clearly reader-oriented, albeit imperfectly defined/developed. (If you're not familiar, then you should know that some editors are frustrated by the existence of those page-types, and try to delete or move them, every few years, eg last months glossaries-rfc. Hence, this topic/rfc is likely to generate heated debate.)

HTH. —Quiddity (talk) 20:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say archive them. It obviously duplicates categories and portals, the current main way of browsing the encyclopedia (of course, search is used most frequently). --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 21:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

They don't strike me as particularly useful, but their existence doesn't seem to be particularly harmful to the project, either. Presumably somebody finds them helpful, because at least some of them are being updated. Since they're not doing any harm, I find it hard to muster a strong opinion against them. Might as well stay. Anaxial (talk) 20:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• I regard only categories and navigation templates as useful means of organization of content, and all the other means (most lists, indices, lists of list, etc.) as clutter. Still, some people maintain and some even use those, so I would strongly recommend to keep them intact and leave them develop naturally – who knows, may be they would outperform the organizational means that are currently better or aid in populating some future (yet to be thought of and implemented) superior means of content organization. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly support the concept of Indexes. The idea emerged from discussions over how to determine notability and for and verifiability within list articles. It was noted that there were two distinct types of list articles... 1) lists that are informational in purpose (ie lists that are intended to inform the reader of facts) and 2) lists that are navigational in purpose (Lists designed purely to aid readers in finding articles or other lists). This was causing confusion, because our content policies and notability guidelines logically apply to the first type, but not the second type. It was suggested that we could resolve a lot of the confusion if we started to call the second type (navigational lists) by a new name... Indexes. Then we could create clear policies and guidelines for each. Blueboar (talk) 01:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Addendum to my comment... taking a second look at the indexes that at issue here... a lot of them do not fit the pattern of what I have described above. I agree that many of them are editor-oriented and not reader-oriented, and these should be moved to Project space. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think that one of the most useful functions of an index is as a source for tracking recent project changes using "Recent changes". That's the main purpose for the Mathematics index as well as a couple that I created (Index_of_women_scientists_articles and Index_of_biophysics_articles). Of course, that is strongly editor-oriented, but I thought that some readers might find them useful too. Wikipedia really needs a better tool for tracking project-related changes. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:Indexes vs. Category:Indexes of topics

@DexDor: Recently, you expained to me that these categories have separate purposes. Still, the names of these categories are confusingly similar. Should these categories be merged, or should one of these categories be a subcategory of the other? Jarble (talk) 19:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I've added some text to Category:Indexes to hopefully make it clearer. Note also that both of these categories have a link to the other. Category:Indexes is for articles about (real world) indexes; it is (currently) parented by Category:Indexing, Category:Publications and Category:Directories. Category:Indexes of topics (aka Category:Indexes of articles) is for pages that are Wikipedia indexes; such pages shouldn't (all) be categorized below Category:Publications etc. Perhaps it (and the subcategories) should be renamed to something like "Category:Wikipedia indexes of topics", "Category:Indexes of topics in Wikipedia" etc. The above discussion (from 2 years ago) suggests that many/all of the pages in this category should be moved to Wikipedia namespace - that would also make the distinction between those pages and articles about (real world) indexes clearer. DexDor ^(talk) 19:57, 3 September 2015 (UTC)