Category talk:Linguists

Category trimming

Mike, Could you please reevaluate your practice of removing redudndent categories. Or, if you want to remove them, how about adding the category as a subcategory of the base category. That way pepole searching for someone can still find them by browsing the category. Although, now you are forcing them to know the nationality. Michael L. Kaufman 14:13, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Michael. I'm not sure what you meant about adding the category as a subcategory of the base cat in your note. All the Category:Linguists placements that I changed were either in already in national subcategories of Category:Linguists, or they were in Linguists only and more specific categories existed.

As for whether they should be in both, I believe that one of the main reasons those categories were split off in the first place was to limit the size of the main category and to avoid redundancies. If everyone in all the national linguist categories were listed in Category:Linguists, that category would have a few hundred entries and be less browsable. Are you proposing they remain in both? I did at least add a note at the top of the Category:Linguists page pointing out that many linguists are in the national lists, and I believe this sort of splitting is standard practice. I'll hold off for now and stop if you can point me to a guideline that says otherwise. Mike Dillon 14:49, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I happened to see this interchange. Personally, I am very dissatisfied with the way our categorization scheme works. However, we have to work within its limits, and according to the policies and guidelines of the community. The community has decided that articles should not be categorized in both a parent and child category. See: wikipedia:categorization, "An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory..." Hopefully, someday, the category scheem will be improved. -Willmcw 17:17, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the wikipedia:categorization statement, the problem with what you are doing is that Category:American linguists is not an actual subcategory of Category:Linguists. COnceptualy it is, but there is no way to find it there unless you know it exists. If you added the national categories to the parent category, then they would be subcategories, and at least people could find them. THis also ignores the problem of multiple sub-category inclusion. SHould - for example - Einstein be in category physicists, Category Theoretical physicist, or category Nobel Prize winning physicist. My own opinionm is that a category physicist that doesn't include Einstein is somewhat imcomplete. I don't know anything about Liguistics, but perhaps a category Linguists that doesn't include Deborah Tannen (or at least a way to find her) is incomplete as well. Michael L. Kaufman 00:14, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Here's my take on your example of Einstein. First, he would belong in Category:Theoretical physicists (if it existed). This would not preclude being in Category:Nobel Prize in Physics winners because that category represents a formal designation on top of being a theoretical physicist (whereas theoretical physicist is a kind of physicist). For someone who isn't world famous or at least extremely prominent in the field, I would leave it at that. However, it does seem reasonable to add Einstein to the supercategory Category:Physicists as well, just because he is so notable. I could see Noam Chomsky, Benjamin Whorf, Ferdinand de Saussure and a few other linguists being on that level, but I've never even heard of Deborah Tannen and I was a Linguistics major. As for putting national subcats directly into the occupational category, it seems inconsistent with the other occupational cats. Mike Dillon 01:52, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

(Since I've barged in, don't mind if I stick around.) A better example of the problem that MLK has identified is Category:Scottish economists and Adam Smith. If you didn't already know that Smith was Scottish, you'd never find him under Category:Economists (if the editors of economists' bios followed the guideline). According to the guideline, an article can be in "sister categories". So he could be in Category:Scottish economists and Category:18th century economists, if there were such a category. In my opinion, the ideal system would allow categories to be general attributes, like "Scottish", "economist", etc. Articles with those attribute could then be searched using common boolean terms. In the meantime you are free to wikipedia:ignore all rules, like the economists. (though others might, just as freely, revert your work and bring you up on charges). Cheers, -Willmcw 05:51, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw: In general, I don't like to revert other people's work except for obvious vandalism or for small "fixes". I reverted the Deborah Tannen article, but when I saw that Mike had made a bunch of those changes, I went and left a message for him instead. If I can convince him, then I will go and revert the others, otherwise I will just leave them. Mike: The problem with putting the less famous linguists in subcategoryies, is that they are they ones who are least likely to be findable if they are not in the main category. Everyone knows about Chomsky, so for the prupose of "finding him" it is not really necessary to put him in the main branch. FOr the purpose of Completeness, it wouldn't make sense to have a main category without him. How do you feel about adding the national categories as sub-categories of the main one? That way they are findable by people looking to read up on linguists. Plus, it has the added value that they are actually sub-categories. Michael L. Kaufman 13:12, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I think a simpler way would be to simply change the category page for Category:Linguists to have a blurb about the separation by nationality and a list of links to the national categories. It isn't automatic, but people also aren't frequently creating subcategories anyhow. The only problem I have is letting the number of articles in a category pass 200 entries with the current Wikipedia software. I actually think that Category:Mathematicians is pretty usable, just by its organization. It has mathematicians by nationality, century, and field. There is also List of mathematicians, comparable to List of linguists. Mike Dillon 03:03, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and changed the Category:Linguists page. I think the results make it more usable. It might be nice to start a Category:Linguists by century, like Category:Mathematicians by century, but I'm not going to take that up soon. If someone does do it, it is easy enough to expand the text on the main page. I feel that linking to List of linguists and Modern linguists is the best way to find a linguist in the circumstance you're trying to accommodate by moving categories or adding people to subcategories and supercategories. Mike Dillon 03:29, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone mind if I copy this discussion to Category talk:Linguists? Mike Dillon 03:39, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I don't. Michael L. Kaufman 04:01, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Linguists by field of study, other classification axes

I've added Category:Sociolinguists and Category:Historical linguists. There are probably enough linguist articles to have more division by field: Category:Syntacticians, Category:Semanticists, Category:Pragmaticists, Category:Morphologists, Category:Phoneticians and phonologists, and Category:Computational linguists.

Another useful axis would probably be linguists by language of study, similar to the existing Category:Linguists of Yiddish: Category:Linguists of German, Category:Linguists of English, Category:Linguists of Japanese, Category:Linguists of Native American languages, Category:Linguists of Celtic languages, Category:Linguists of Germanic languages.

Having these additional axes of classification could make it easier to find linguists who are currently only in the national subcats of Category:Linguists by nationality (which is unusable if you don't already know someone's nationality). If there gets to be too many of them, they can be subclassified again to be under Category:Linguists by field and Category:Linguists by language of study instead of directly under Category:Linguists. Mike Dillon 16:52, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I suggest separate categories for phoneticians and phonologists, as the two often regard themselves as quite distinct. There will be some overlap for some linguists, but then that will also happen with every other conceivable category of linguists suggested. For example, phonologists working in Optimality Theory almost always consider themselves morphologists as well, or alternatively deny that there is such a thing as a morphologist! And syntacticians, believe it or not (!), often work on semantics and phonology as well. I suppose this overlap isn't really a problem. Matve 12:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Reconsider subcategorization

The 10-year-old discussions above should be reconsidered in light of the current policies in WP: CATEGORY. Thnidu (talk) 20:08, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Issue posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics# Subcategories of Category: Linguists. Please contribute there. --Thnidu (talk) 20:41, 28 September 2015 (UTC)