Committee post: Category Post III

[rbarenblat]

The wiki committee would like to offer our thanks to everyone who has commented on our recent posts about categories on Fanlore, Category proposal (May 21) and Category proposal II (June 18). Your input has been really helpful.

Based on those conversations and the conversations we've had within the committee, here's what we're now planning to do.

Fanlore will have overlapping categories under Fandoms by Canon Type so everyone can have the categories they find useful. Here's a diagram of (what we hope is) the final version of our category proposal:



Category: Fan Communities. Fandoms by Canon Type includes Animation, Sequtial Art, Books & Literature, Live-action Film, Live-action TV, Celebrities & Real People. Fandoms by Source Text includes things such as Bleach, Watchmen, Harry Potter, Blake's 7, Lotrips, Coffee Prince, Johnny's Entertainment. Fandoms by Community includes things like Anime & Manga Fandom, Comics Fandom, Filk, Media Fandom, K-Drama Fandom, J-Pop Fandom.

On the specific questions of manga, anime, comics, and sequential art which have sparked so many conversations, here's a close-up of what we're thinking. In the new system, all sequential art goes in "Sequential Art", and all comics from Japan go in "Manga." US-based comics can go in "U.S. Comics & Graphic Novels" (which would be a subcategory of "Sequential Art") and so on. Here is a diagram of the result, with existing categories in white, new categories in pink, and the renamed categories in light pink:



Fandoms by canon type: Animation, Sequential Art, Books & Literature, Games, Live-Action Film, Live-action TV, Radio, Celebrities & Real People, Theater. Subcat "Anime" can be reached on its own or via Animation; Subcat "Manga" can be reached on its own or via Sequential Art; Subcats "Actor RPF," "Historical RPF, "Music RPF," and "Sports RPF" can be reached via Celebrities & Real People.

We know this isn't a perfect solution, but we hope it meets most people's needs reasonably well. We hope to begin implementing this new system immediately, but as always, we welcome feedback and conversation. Let us know what you think. Thanks!

Comments

progress report

[aethel]

I've been working on setting up the Fandoms by Canon Type categories, and I created the Anime & Manga Fandom category as well, but if anyone wants to create more Fandoms by Community categories or start cross-categorizing the anime & manga fandom cats, please jump in!

We already have a Filk Music category, so it could potentially be cross-categorized under Fandoms by Community.

I created a Comics Fandom category, but it can be renamed if someone has a better idea.

There are 300+ pages in the Television category that need to be edited. If someone wants to go into each page, replace [[Category:Television]] with [[Category:Live-action Television]] (checking to be sure it *is* live-action), and add [[Category:Fandoms by Source Text]] if the page doesn't have a fandom category, I will love you forever. :)

I also created an Animated_Film category and was surprised to find only 6 pages for it.

One other thing: I have not yet cross-categorized anime and manga pages in Sequential Art or Animation. How does it look now?

Re: progress report

[zebra_in_dream]

So, by that scheme comics and manga still appear like they can't be Books & Literature. Why is live action special enough to warrant two categories why animation only gets one?

Or do you want people to create these categories on their own? Where is the stop point to that? What categories shouldn't be created? What's the maximum depth the category tree should be done?

Re: progress report

[aethel]

Yes, graphic novels are not included in Books & Literature. I added a note to the Books & Literature category to make this clear.

Animation currently has three categories: a href=http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Animation>Animation, Animated_Film, and Anime. The vast majority of pages in the Animation category are television shows, so an Animated Television category would be redundant at this point.

Anyone can create fandom categories (the name of the fandom, containing all wiki pages related to that fandom), but creating non-fandom categories requires at least some discussion, consensus, and notifying the committee (at least so that we can update the sitemap). So don't add new Canon Types without discussing it with other editors first, either here or on the talk page for Category:Fandoms_by_Canon_Type.