Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Genre and media categories
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This is a proposed guideline for the management of user categories by genre and media.
User category grid
Genre tree
This is incomplete. For the discussion of this proposal it should be a good base.
| Genre | Fiction | Action | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Non-fiction | Adventure | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Drama | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dramedy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Comedy | Situation comedy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Romantic comedy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Romance | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Erotica | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Historical fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alternate history | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Speculative fiction | Alternate society | Dystopia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tragedy | Disaster | Utopia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Westerns | Horror | Splatterpunk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Elfpunk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fantasy | Mythpunk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Punk | Mannerpunk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Science fiction | Biopunk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clockpunk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cyberpunk | Postcyberpunk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dieselpunk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Steampunk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Like versus interested
Why use like? The word interested is too passive and ambiguous. The word like on the other hand is far more active and specific. People who like something will do whatever they can to keep articles up to date and improve them. People who are just interested may give the articles a glance and nothing more. Also, even though we are always told that Wikipedia is not paper, it does not mean that we should not try to conserve space. Remember, every time a page is saved, the entire last copy is stored. That is a lot of space.
Compare:
[[Category:Wikipedians interested in X]] [[Category:Wikipedians who like X]]
X does not have genres
Televisions and radios, as devices, do not have genres, however what comes out of them most likely does. Instead of using the longer television series and radio series (or play), they have been truncated. This also avoids the wrangling between series and programme.
Where is music?
Music has its own genres that do not go with this scheme. There are two categories related to this within the parent, Wikipedians who listen to film scores and Wikipedians who listen to video game music.
Franchise or series specific categories
Whenever a franchise or series category is created, it would be put into as many of the above categories that apply.
Examples
- Wikipedians who like Law & Order
- This example is of a properly named category that fits into several of the above categories.
- Wikipedians who like drama television - There are currently 3 series being aired, 3 former series, and 2 international series.
- Wikipedians who like drama novels - There are 3 related novels.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction books - There are 2 related non-fiction books.
- Wikipedians who like drama video games - There are 2 or 3 related video games.
- Wikipedians who like drama films - There is 1 related film.
- Wikipedians who like The Chronicles of Narnia
- This example is of an improperly named category that fits into several of the above categories.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy literature - There are 7 novels in this series.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy films - There are 7 related films.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy television - There is a related television series.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy video games - There are 2 related video games.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy plays - There is a related play.
- Wikipedians who like fantasy radio - There is a related radio series.
- Wikipedians who listen to film scores - There is a related soundtrack.
- Wikipedians who like The Addams family
- This example is of a category that has yet to be created but will fit into multiple genres and media.
- Wikipedians who like horror television and Wikipedians who like comedy television - There are currently 5 television series.
- Wikipedians who like horror films and Wikipedians who like comedy films - There are 4 related films.
- Wikipedians who like horror games and Wikipedians who like comedy games - There are 6 related games of various types.
- Wikipedians who like horror literature and Wikipedians who like comedy literature - There are many novels.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction books - There are 2 (maybe more) related non-fiction books.
- Wikipedians who listen to film scores - There are 4 related soundtracks.
- Wikipedians who like Ripley's Believe It or Not!
- This example is of a category that has gone beyond media and will fit into non-genre and non-media categories.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction comics - It all started out as a little comic strip.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction books - There are currently scores of related books out there.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction television - There are 4 related television series.
- Wikipedians who like non-fiction films - If Jim Carey can ever get it off the ground.
- Wikipedians interested in museums - There are all of those Odditoriums out there. (I could have sworn this one existed.)
Creating a franchise or series user category
If you want to create a user category for something you like, take a look around to see how many others like the same thing. You can do this by going to several articles about it and seeing who else edits them. You can also go to the lead article are see who else has it on their user pages by clicking "What links here" and choosing "User" from the drop down box next to "Namespace:". You could also use Lady Aleena's user link template which will create a link to the article and a link to "What links here" specifically the user namespace. From that list of users, you could talk to them about creating the category.
Another way is to talk about it on the red linked category's talk page. Just because the category does not exist yet, does not mean that you can not talk about it. On that page you could discuss why the category should be created. If you wanted to create Wikipedians who like Cagney & Lacey, you might want to go to its talk page and let people know that it is a long running, award winning television series which has spawned four television films, a novelization, and two non-fiction books of which only the main article has been created.
The last method would be to propose it on a general proposal page, which has not been created yet. As with the message on the talk page, you should explain why the category is worthy of being created. It is unlikely that a category such as Wikipedians who like Labyrinth would survive long, even if it is a cult classic film with a soundtrack, not even an article category for it would survive long. To find others who like that film and soundtrack, you could use Lady Aleena's template above.
You could also just add the red linked category to your user page and click on it to see if anyone else has it red linked.
More power to user categories
To make user categories more powerful, it would be a good idea to show which articles are covered by the category. The {{Topic co-ordination link}} template would be a good addition to any user category.
Note: The template mentioned in this section is one that is used for articles only. If this proposal is accepted, the template would have to be expanded, or a new template would have to written.
Conclusion
There are still items to be worked out, however, this is hopefully a good start to the discussion.