fandom sub categories for zines (or really all fanworks)

[ratcreature]

Yesterday and today I have started to add zines pages that have been added as articles to lists on the respective fandom (sub)pages so that the zine articles wouldn't be orphaned and could also be found more easily (the search rather sucks). However this is drudgery, as I more or less just do data sorting and reassembly by hand. It would make much more sense, IMO, if the zine category had fandom subcategories, and when creating a new page for a sentinel zine it would just have a category "category:zine:sentinel" or something like that. Then if for easier display one would still like a list on the fandom zine subpage one could at least c&p the list the wiki assembles instead of going through orphaned pages and/or search results by hand. Why aren't there fandom subcategories?

Comments

[morgandawn]

I second this suggestion. There will a flood of new zine covers and fanzine pages uploaded in the next months and it would be good to get this squared away.

But if I read this page correctly
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:Categories

you can go ahead and create the sub-category? is this workable (creating it as you go? and possibly adding an instruction on the zine page? I can also pass the suggestion along to the person who will be mass uploading the fanzine covers/creating fan pages)

[ratcreature]

All the editing pages when you work on an entry yell at you in bold text "Do not add categories that are not listed in the Sitemap." so I assume I'm not allowed to create them as needed.

[ratcreature]

Also, I think that if fandom categories were introduced a technically (and wiki) savy person with the correct rights might be able to create a bot that reads the "fandom" field in the templates and adds that in a category string or something like that, so that the backlog of old entries wouldn't be changed manually. At least I hope that is possible. I mean, I remember there was a yuletide fandom bot that did editing.

[morgandawn]

I;d send this question off to the gardeners as well as posting it here. as for the don;t add categories warning - I do not think it is meant to stop us from coming up with better ideas and trying them. one things I;ve learned about wikis -waiting for 'approval' from a non centralized group can stifle creativity and participation. fanlore still very small and it may take weeks of persistent poking to hear back.

so I suggest trying to work with the established gardeners channels and then forging ahead if you don;t get a response in a few weeks. given that over 1000 fanzines will be arriving in a few months, your efforts now will save them (and us) a lot of hassle down the road.