User talk:BrokenSphere

Hello and welcome to the wiki. First, let me thank you for your enthusiasm and the edits you've made to the content of some of our pages. With that out of the way, to the issue. Please keep in mind that the Weapons category is a category that you yourself created only yesterday. While I do believe that it has a place here, it cannot encompass the entire meaning of certain pages. Simply because it falls under Technology as a subcategory does not mean that noting a object's technological significance is unnecessary next to its combat significance; whether or not an automail or machine can act as a weapon, it's technological significance remains separate from that. The Briggs Tank, Mad Bear G and Crocodile are all weapons, yes, but they also represent technological advancements in fields of biomechanics and engineering whose purposes are not necessarily tied to weaponry. If we had any articles on specific or individual firearms, then the Weapons category alone would likely suffice, but for these articles and articles like it, that is not the case. It isn't so much a policy here as a judgment call we've made. So long as an item is both combatively significant and technologically significant, both categories stay. The Item category also serves a purpose, though one admittedly less significant than the Technology tag. There aren't so many categories on this site that overcategorization will become a problem, in any case. CorbeauKarasu 17:19, July 15, 2011 (UTC)

Hey
Hey, I've been doing some thinking and I think I owe you an apology. I've been rather crass as of late and I really don't want to come off that way. It's true that I am quick to resort to action, then I usually end up regretting a lot of it because I don't think it out. Rather rash, at least online. It is just a wikipeda, big deal, and nowhere near the level to decide to 'hate' someone. We disagreed about the Noah picture, but then finally, we both found a solution to the problem, which I could have just said to begin with, which is what I should have. So, I'll attempt to remember that in future situations. From your edits, I hope you stay around for a bit since you seem to also care about what goes into this site, which is always a good thing to have (if you're working on something).

So, I apologize for being an ass. I have been kinda irritable as of late too due to a lot of tension in my daily life, so sometimes it makes it worse. I'll try and think a little clearer from now on. Tommy-Vercetti 22:04, July 20, 2011 (UTC)


 * First I want to acknowledge you for this - it takes guts to admit when you've made a mistake, especially to other people. I did notice that the tone of your editing has mellowed out and I appreciate the efforts that you're putting into this, even if there are other things going on in your life that are affecting you, which I hope work out.  I feel that as wiki editors we have enough going on and there are so many ideas that we could implement and topics that we could collaboratively work on to continue to make this wiki the go to resource for FMA.  In the end, I feel that it's not worth it for there to be unnecessary stress and bad feelings between editors, because it affects readers and other editors as well who may not be involved.  So I'm glad that we have an understanding with each other and are willing to talk things out.  I look forward to working with you to help make this wiki better.   BrokenSphere  (Talk) 22:23, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

New Categories
We've discussed this before and I have to say it irks me to have all these categories reduced to a single tag. You mentioned "overcategorization", but to me "undercategorization" is more of an issue. I could perhaps see your point if pages whose categories were themselves subcategorized all appeared on the page of the parent category, but since that is not the case, I feel that your method oversimplifies things a bit. I dislike the fact that clicking on the Military category brings up a list of page names that does not include the military members who happen to be State Alchemists. Opening a Characters category that opens to a host of redirecting links and not a display of all the characters on the site has the same effect on me. I had refrained from adding "State Alchemist" as a category because such an action would compel me to list Military, Alchemist and State Alchemist at the bottom of each SA's page and that seems a little redundant, but I think that even that would be preferable to listing State Alchemist as a character's sole identifying category. Perhaps "Events" can be circumvented if there are no events which are not also Military conflicts, but I'm not sure that's the case. I don't really see a point to making a category if it will only contain a single article, either. That being said, some of the categories you've added, like Ishvalans, Ishval and Amestris will no doubt be quite useful, but will not be considered replacements for other categories like "Location". CorbeauKarasu 18:06, July 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * Let me see if I understand this: "if pages whose categories were themselves subcategorized all appeared on the page of the parent category" - the answer this that they do, but just not in list form. They are in the subcategories that are displayed at the top. All you need to do is then go into these to see what's in them. Undercategorization isn't happening at all - that would be if something was not in a relevant category, but that isn't happening here. Are you saying that it would be better for you if article X in subcategory Y of parent category Z is displayed in list form in both Y and in Z ? This wouldn't happen, because this isn't how the wikia, Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons category system works. I have yet to see any wiki in my 5 years of working with them display any categorized subjects in list form in both the parents and subcategories. If this were happening, then the wiki's Browse category would also be displaying everything: content, administration pages, images, templates, help pages, every single page and piece of media, everything. But it isn't because the subcategories are further organizing things by topic and function. This process is the same thing but is more focused on specific topics.


 * As a veteran editor I had assumed that you would have some familiarity with the system, so sorry for assuming this. The multiple and duplicate categorization here which results in redundancy shows that how the category system works isn't clearly understood as it's intended to function, which is to promote category streamlining by encouraging specificity vs. creating more work and diffusion by putting subjects into say 3 categories that can be covered by 1. Here the possibility of undercategorization actually increases if all 3 aren't put in. But if 1 covers all 3 of them, what's wrong with this? Three birds killed with one stone. To address the specific example, if you look at the category trees of State Alchemists, this category falls under both Alchemist and Military. Alchemist falls under Characters and Alchemy and Military falls under Amestris and Characters (although there is some tightening up that can be done here as there are non character subjects in Military - e.g. a State Military subcategory and further subcategories of that, like State Military personnel, State Military equipment, etc.). Otherwise it looks to me like State Alchemists is covering all the bases. When the category system is used as you suggest it is losing most of its functionality and is being severely underutilized. As wikis expand they get more complex, and these sort of things helps organize topics. Like I mentioned before too, just because X isn't displaying in list form in Z while it does in Y doesn't mean that it isn't covered by both. As you can probably tell I'm a fan of categories and I feel that this more focused organization makes the wiki a more well-oiled machine and ultimately stronger, not weaker. So I'm having some trouble understanding why you appear to disagree with this or are not reconciled to the fact that, from my first example, just because X isn't displaying in list form in Z doesn't mean that it's not there. For an example of what I'm talking about on a much larger scale, this is how Wikimedia Commons views over-categorization. BrokenSphere  (Talk) 18:32, July 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * I forgot to address this: "I don't really see a point to making a category if it will only contain a single article" - if you're talking about the Amestris category, which had just Ishval in it as of this writing, every other Amestris location and topic can go in there, it was just not fully populated yet. BrokenSphere  (Talk) 19:08, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

I am aware that the categorization system doesn't work like that. I was expressing my wish that it did. Then, I could feel some justification for using fewer categories on pages. Whether or not the categorization system was designed for the task you say, I don't think it really affects efficiency here. Save for a handful of pages that have yet to be written (most of which will fall into pre-existing categories anyway) this site isn't going to expand very much, so our previous system was carrying the weight adequately. Military and State Alchemist are different concepts, even if one is considered part of the other. I get that you're a fan of categories, but we don't necessarily do things here the way Wikimedia Commons thinks they should be done. Where they offer helpful advice, we accept it and where we think they are wrong, we weed things out. The fact of the matter is that, concepts aside, the pages categorized in a subcategory don't appear on the page of the parent category. They may be connected by links, but they are separate pages. A Character tag denotes that the page refers to a character and not a place, object or concept, so at the very least, I think that tag should remain separately on each Character's page. A category listing the broader meaning of the page in relation to the site itself and at least one other referring to the character's relation to other concepts within the world. That, I feel is as far as we should compromise. I was aware that other locations would eventually go into the Amestris tag, but it seems like pages that fit the bill will not all be locations, in which case, I feel a "Locations" tag is still necessary. Additionally, there are locations which will not fall under the "Amestris" banner. So long as one category cannot vouch for every page in another category, I don't think they should be treated as interchangeable, regardless of what Wikimedia Commons dictates. I understand that you're trying to help and you have a stance on this that can be comprehended and respected, but such radical and seemingly unnecessary changes to our modus operandi without prior discussion are likely to be met with some opposition. Perhaps, though, other people can offer their insight on how to proceed. I am the primary acting administrator here, but if enough people think a change is in order in this particular matter, I may have to go with the popular opinion of our regular users. CorbeauKarasu 23:02, July 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how I gave the impression that Locations would go away. Amestris is meant to concentrate Amestris-specific topics, but obviously there will be subjects that are more appropriate for the broader Locations category.  E.g., Countries, maybe even Earth, and I have an idea also for Cities and Towns.  I think see where you're coming from on also ensuring that the larger category topic (Characters, Locations) also be accounted for.  However I think too that we need to give readers credit in being able to distinguish between a character and a location when they're reading an article.


 * I have been a bit bold since arriving here and maybe for something like this it would have been better to talk first before implementing such drastic changes unilaterally. However I appreciate your raising the issue with me vs. reverting my edits, as there were some other tweaks in there besides the recategorization.  I am curious - do you you work with other wikis or any of the Wikimedia Foundation projects as well?  Because if so and given how you feel about topics not displaying in both parent and subcategories there and on the Wikia system, then I'm assuming that this must drive you nuts.


 * How about this. I'll hold off on further recategorizing.  Let's discuss this issue on the main page and we can present our respective viewpoints.  I do wish that more people were active on here than the 3 of us, but that's how it is at the moment.   BrokenSphere  (Talk) 23:29, July 21, 2011 (UTC)