fanlore | Entries tagged with categories

I've been pondering whether it would make sense to create some SF, anime, media fandom, etc. convention subcategories and templates.

We've got

a general convention template
an online convention template
a Star Trek convention template

We could add:
Science Fiction Conventions (or Science Fiction & Fantasy Conventions?)
Media Fandom Conventions (or Multifandom Media Conventions?)
Anime & Manga Conventions
??

Whatever there's content for.

ETA: I made draft templates for sf cons and doujinshi cons.

elf

I want to make a bunch of gaming pages at Fanlore. Mostly tabletop RPGs, because that's what I know well enough to just sit down with a template and throw in data; eventually, some hex-map-based wargames, some board and card games, and probably some online flash games.

I'm trying to figure out how to start, and I'd like some advice.

( Mostly, I want help with categories and templates and infoboxes. )

The real questions here (if you read through all that) are:
1) How to categorize a cluster of gaming pages, mostly tabletop RPG, but possibly a few others, so that they probably don't all need to be retouched later, and
2) Is my approach to RPG pages reasonable, or something that doesn't fit well with the rest of the wiki?

briar_pipe

*tiptoes in*

Hi folks! I've been tackling one small boulder in the mountain of fansub information not yet on the wiki, and I have a few questions about categories and templates.

( In no particular order... )

An unrelated question: I'm trying to make an internal link to /a/, in case anyone gets brave enough to tackle 4chan-related info. However, I can't get the wiki to show the //. Any wiki gurus out there know the trick?

Thanks, guys!

aethel

Since response to the fanwork category proposal post was positive, we have started creating the proposed fanwork subcategories. So far, we have added:

* Zine Fandom
* Podfics
* Fanfiction
* Vids

and updated the corresponding templates. Now the Fanworks category contains only 348 pages, down from over 11,000! Check out the current Fanworks category.

( still to do )

aethel

ETA June 29: Check out the follow-up post listing categories created so far.

Every Fanlore article that documents a particular fanwork is currently listed in the Fanworks category. This category contains 11,000 articles and counting, so it's not very useful for browsing. Fanlore editors have been discussing the possibility of adding subcategories to the Fanworks category for some time now. So the Wiki Committee put together a list of some potential subcategories, some of which already exist on the wiki and can be cross-categorized under Fanworks:

Category:Fanworks (existing)
* Category:Doujinshi (existing)
* Category:Fanfiction
* Category:Vids
* Category:Zines (existing) - create a new cat called "Zine Fandom" to house non-zine pages; current usage of category is mixed
* Category:Artworks
** Category:Zine Covers
** Category:Doujinshi Covers
** Category:Manips
** Category:Icons
** Category:Banners
** ?

What do you think?

Notes:
1. We don't necessarily need a category for every single type of fanwork (or the Fanworks category will be empty), but we should create categories for types of fanworks with a lot of Fanlore content. We can always add more fanwork types later.
1a. There is a lot of material about fanart on the wiki, so more art subcategories would probably be a good idea. What is the best way to group fanart?
1b. We are thinking that the proposed "Vids" category would also be a subcategory under Vidding and would not include AMVs. There is a mixed-use Anime_Music_Video category, but it still has only six pages. :(
2. Except for the fanart, moving pages from the Fanworks category to the subcategories should be relatively easy because we can add the categories to the infobox templates instead of to each individual page.
3. Most of the new categories can be cross-categorized under the relevant fan activity cat. For example, Category:Fanfiction could appear under both Category:Fanworks and Category:Fiction Writing.

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. ( Information and diagrams under the cut! )

aethel

Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on the category proposal from May 21. As suggested by facetofcathy and others, here's a further revision to that proposal:

Instead of deleting the format categories that currently reside under Fandoms by Source Text, we will move them under another parent category we will create called _Fandoms by Canon Type_. The fandom categories will look something like this:

( cut for images, explanation, examples )
--------------------------------------------------------------

We welcome discussion, comments, and feedback.

aethel

The Fanlore wiki committee would like to thank everyone who's participated in our recent conversation about categories and anime / manga / related fandoms. Several commentors on that thread sparked the following idea (especially branchandroot -- thanks, branchandroot!), and we'd like to know what you think about it.

The idea is this: what if we remove all of the format categories, and replace them with a flat, non-hierarchical list of fandom categories? ( long explanation, with a few small graphics )

EDIT June 23: See the revised proposal here

rbarenblat

The Fanlore wiki committee has been brainstorming this year about outreach to different fan communities, especially fan communities which are unrepresented or under-represented on Fanlore. Anime, manga, and related communities are an area where we’d like to do some outreach.

Before we really dive in to trying to spread the word about Fanlore in various anime and manga communities, we want to make sure that we’ve created a good wiki structure in which fans can add pages. Here are the category pages for anime and manga as things stand now:

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Anime
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Manga

We probably need to reexamine how the above format categories are assigned to fandom pages. Do we want anime movies to be in the Film category? Anime/Manga may also need a separate Fandom by Source Community category (and what should we call it?). One issue we’ve become aware of is that the terms “anime” and “manga” may exclude similar material created in countries other than Japan (manhua in China, for example). We’re not sure what the right answers are. Here are a few ideas:

Option 1: Merge the Anime category with Cartoons and the Manga category with Comics.

Anime + Cartoons → Cartoons
Manga + Comics → Comics

Option 2: Create a new category, Animation, for the combined Anime and Cartoons categories. Merge the Manga category with Comics.

Anime + Cartoons → Animation
Manga + Comics → Comics

Option 3:
? something we haven’t even thought of yet!

We’re hoping for a system that will accommodate many needs, including those of manhua, manhwa, and a variety of animation and comics fandoms from around the world. If you have knowledge in these areas, we definitely want to hear from you! We hope to find a few fans who are excited about the prospect of chronicling and preserving anime or manga fandoms and their histories, who can help us 1) figure out how best to structure this corner of the wiki and 2) reach out to anime and manga communities for more participation once we have a good structure in place.

Might you be that person? Let us know by dropping a comment on this post, or contact us using our contact form. And please feel free to signal-boost this post on your own journal or in the fannish spaces you frequent. Thanks!

Edited to add: ~~stay tuned -- a new post is coming from the Fanlore wiki committee which contains a new proposal for how to handle categories on the wiki, based in large part on response to this post.~~ We've made a follow-up post, which is here: Category proposal.

aethel

By request, we’re creating a new category called Chronology for articles that describe the history of a fandom or fan activity in chronological order. Although historical perspectives are a welcome addition to any Fanlore article, this category should be for articles that are exclusively focused on documenting changes or listing events over time (in paragraph form, in bullet point form, or in nifty chart form).

The category will be included in the recently created History template, so you may never need to manually add the category to an article. Articles with titles like “History of X Fandom” or “Timeline of Y Fandom” should generally get the history template and Chronology category.

In addition, Chronology will be the parent category for a new hierarchy: date categories! These categories will follow the pattern below:

Category:Chronology
...Category:Before 1900
...Category:20th Century
......Category:1960s
......Category:1970s
......Category:1980s
......Category:1990s
...Category:21st Century
......Category:2000s
.........Category:2004
.........etc.
......Category:2010s

For the purposes of this wiki, the 20th century is 1900-1999, the 1990s are 1990-1999, etc.

We will begin creating the century and decade categories in a few hours. Like with fandom categories, year categories will be created [by you] when the decade category becomes too large and there are enough pages for each year (10-15ish). Topics that span several years (such as Escapade)
should be given decade categories rather than every single year.

What kind of article should have a date category?

Only articles on topics that have well-defined dates should be included. That is, articles about fanworks, archives, websites, conventions, and other miscellaneous events. Fandoms should NOT be included.

Who will be adding pages to these new categories?

Uh, you will. So please let us know if you have questions or if there are any problems with the structure we outlined here! Or if there's ambiguity with what articles to include or what categories to give them, etc.

aethel

So a few of us have been removing incorrect categories and switching templates on the zine pages for a couple months now. I'm about half-way through the Anthology Zines, and I've noticed some other dedicated souls fixing categories on lots of pages, so this thing might get done before 2012!

But we're having a little discussion about the Anthology Zines category name, which may or may not need to be changed. Mostly I'm reposting this in dreamwidth because I made some graphics over Christmas to illustrate the zine category structure. Check out the current state of affairs:
( cut for the uninterested )

aethel

The Wiki Committee has approved "Tropes & Genres" as a new floating category (a top-level category with no subcategories, like Fanworks and Glossary).

The idea is to group together all the pages that discuss genres, tropes, and trends within fanworks (all types of fanworks--fanfic, art, vids, etc.). There will be a lot of overlap with the Glossary category, but some trope pages are not fannish terms (cyberpunk, unicorns, Animals in Fanworks, Rape in Fanworks, etc.). So this category is also designed to fix the problem of miscategorized and uncategorized trope/genre pages.

Example pages to go in the category: Story Tropes, Slash Tropes, Animals in Fanworks, Cats, Undercover in a Gay Bar, Constructed Reality, Bodyswap, Hurt/Comfort, Slash, Gen, Het, Tentacles, Landscape

Pages that should NOT be included: fanwork formats like Podfic, Fanfiction, Zine, Vid, etc. These belong under Fan Activities

I have created a template to go with the new category. I've had some feedback already, but the template hasn't been used yet, so please let me know if there are major flaws, etc. I tried something new that can be easily changed even after the template is in use: a row containing some pre-programmed links to pages that would otherwise be linked manually in most trope pages (e.g. Story Tropes).

aethel

May I direct your attention to a few discussions on the wiki? These might benefit from more input.

We've got a draft template for vids that's ready to be used if no one can think of any more/different fields to put in it.

We're also discussing how to divide up the zine category into more manageable chunks.

And Doro has asked about a template for timelines and/or histories.

aethel

FYI, I updated all the templates to comply with the no-breadcrumb rule for categories. This means most of the templates no longer appear in the main Template category, which I figured might surprise people who are looking for them. The notices, labels, and infoboxes can now be found in the subcategories. Miscellaneous templates remain in the parent category.

I added a blurb on the main template category page about what "notices," "labels," and "infoboxes" actually are, but I could be wrong--I was extrapolating from the templates that were already in the categories. Check it out:

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Fanlore_Templates

I also created redirects/shortcuts to get to the infobox and template categories: type "infoboxes" or "templates" into the search box and you will magically end up on the relevant category page! If there's another page outside of the main namespace that you need to consult frequently, but have trouble finding, consider creating a redirect for it.

aethel

Some questions have been raised about how to structure the categories for some particularly complex fandoms, and the wiki committee has come up with solutions in the cases of CSI and LOTR.

Each CSI show now has its own subcategory under the main CSI cat.

"Tolkien" and "Lord of the Rings" are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the same fandom, but "Tolkien" was chosen as the main category so that The Hobbit and The Silmarillion could be added as subcategories. Any fan activity (zines, etc.) that took place before the Silmarillion was published (1977) can be assumed to belong under LOTR unless otherwise specified. Any article about middle-earth-related, post-1977 fannish activity that either doesn't specify Hobbit, LOTR, or Silmarillion OR applies to all of them can be added to the Tolkien category. I created a chart to illustrate the new category structure:

More subcategories can be added if needed (pairings, characters?).

Please let us know if you have questions about (or solutions for) what category to use for any other straggler fandoms.

aethel

In addition to the ongoing fandom category project, a few more categories have been added by request: Poetry and newsgroups. There was also a request for a cookbook category, but I may have complicated matters by suggesting too many alternate names. Consensus on the Cookbook talk page, please?

I also started a thread here on how/whether to create a Vidder category, which I dimly recall someone mentioned in comments on an earlier post in this community. I haven't seen a formal request for this category.

You can always check out all the new categories added in the last few days.

aethel

The wiki committee has decided to drop the previous policy of adding a page to not just the most specific category, but to every parent category in the hierarchy above that child category. Previously, a page on fanfiction would have been categorized under "Fan Activities" as well as "Fiction Writing". However, as users have pointed out, adding pages to their parent and grandparent categories has resulted in top-level categories that are too heavily populated to be useful for browsing. The new procedure is to add pages only to the most specific categories that fit and not to their parent categories. For example, a fanzine page would get the "Fanworks," "Zines," and "Fiction Writing" categories, but not the "Fan Activities" or "Print Media" categories.

Because categories are automatically included with some templates, the templates will be checked to make sure they comply with the changes. Feel free to add a comment here if you see a template that needs its categories fixed.

An exception to the new rule: We want to keep main fandom pages in the "Fandom by Source Text" category (where they are now) until we've finished the fandom category project.

aethel

Because it was getting amazingly complex and because I am a giant nerd, I made this diagram to show the current Star Trek category structure on Fanlore. Some of these were just added this afternoon, so they're empty at the moment.

( diagram here )

meri_oddities

I'm posting this here before adding this to the policy.

There are some smaller decisions the wiki committee has made:

Sorting the Fandom Categories - We will sort by the default letter sort. Except where the category is a non-fandom category: Books & Literature, Movies, Real People, etc…

We will create a zine (or fanworks, or communities) sub-category if there are more then 15 pages in the fandom category.

RPF categories. We are going to go with Real People as the main category and then Actor RPF, Music RPF, Historical FPR, and then by fandom (person) categories.

If there is a list of zines that is a subpage of the main category, it will become a top-level page under the category and if there are more than 15 zines on that page, a subcategory will be created.

Some examples:

Harry Potter/List of Challenges becomes List of Harry Potter Challenges and is put into the Harry Potter Category.

Since it has more than 15 challenges listed on the page, the separate challenge pages will only appear in the Harry Potter Challenges Category and not in the main category.

For Star Trek, a main category will be created and then subsequent subcategories with Star Trek TOS, Star Trek TNG, Star Trek AOS, etc.

The same rules apply, if there are more than 15 pages for any subcategory then they should not be listed on the main subcategory (Star Trek TOS). They should be listed on the secondary subcategory (Star Trek TOS fanzines).

If there are more questions about how to do things, ask them in comments, and I'll either answer or take them back to the committee.

elf

I've been adding filk albums to fanlore & updating some of the ones already there, and adding filkers to the Filk Music category, and I want to start adding filk companies, and...

There's no "company" template. There's nothing kinda-sorta like a company template.

Help? What goes in a company template?
Name - Date founded - Date ended, if any - Location (address? Or just city/state/nation?) - Media - Fandom(s)? (some don't seem to label well by "fandom") - website -- other stuff?

What categories should companies have?

( Some companies that should have listings )

And now I have to go to work & won't be able to reply to anything until the evening. But I do get notifications of replies & can start putting together a template if I get suggestions.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Fanlore's Journal

conventions by fandom

Gaming fandoms

Categories/templates in Animanga and Translation?

Status of Fanwork Categories

proposal for fanwork subcategories

Committee post: Category Post III

committee post: Category Proposal II

committee post: Category proposal

committee post: Seeking a few good anime and manga fans!

committee post: New Category Hierarchy

not a committee post: zine categories, illustrated

[sort of a] committee post: new floating category [and a template!]

not a committee post: current template and category discussions

templates and redirects, or, stuff that aethel's been doing

LOTR, CSI categories

category requests

Category "breadcrumbs": policy change

gratuitous Star Trek category post

Addendum to the fandom category policy:

Need template:company

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April 2013

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