User:Iritscen/CategoryTree

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Revision as of 17:08, 12 November 2008 by Iritscen (talk | contribs) (responses, and hopefully an idea or two that you like)
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Note to geyser: being your usual diligent self, I know you will notice this new page. The wiki seemed a good place to post this as a working document that we can use to arrive at the final tree of categories. Some parts will look familiar because they're from your original draft.
Also, just a reminder, the Category Tree extension goes hand in hand with this, so we should ask Alloc about installing it on the wiki. Without it, the only page that shows categories is Special:Categories, which lists all cat.s at all levels; CatTree will let us see the hierarchy properly, once it's in place.
Iritscen
Please don't be pedantic about "chibi" etc. If it's "chibi" to those who draw it, then it should be good enough for you. I can assure you that Russians (RedDog and SeverED included) have no idea what "SD" means. And to me as a non-native English speaker, "super deformed" sounds, well, ugly: it's an inconvenient mouthful with a teratological connotation. "Chibi" has a much more kawaii sound to it, so unless you have another Japanese term, just STFU ^_^ --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
I wasn't specifically objecting to the word "chibi", just the category's existence. It's silly. But I can live with that. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
I was under the strong impression that you were specifically objecting to the word "chibi" all along. There's a lot of SD art out there, and the clear-cut style supports the idea of a category IMO. A broader category name would be Kawaii, the idea being an automatically updated collection of hapé stuff. Silly, maybe, but it's a reality of our community. ^_^ --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
Meh. I just didn't see the point of the category, but it's not worth arguing over; I don't *have* to see the point, as long as the cat. fits into the overall Tree, which it does. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
"Contents" sounds sensible for something that's supposed to read roughly as a TOC. If you're looking for a funky name, you can call the root "Prime". --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
"Contents" is fine, I have no problem with that. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
"Early renders" is applied improperly sometimes to in-game screenshots, sometimes to stuff that was rendered after Oni was shipped. I'd delete it. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Yeah, it's potentially confusing. Removed. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
The "Art by Mullins" is not really fan art, and some of the art by Guido and Russian artists is project-oriented. I suggest a looser hierarchy there. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Ah, looser isn't quite what's needed, I see it now; this kind of situation is meant to be handled as I've done it now, with a separate cat. for "Art by artists". As you pointed out, multiple inheritance means we can now say that some Oni 2 art is "by Guido" (and not fan art) as well as putting it under "Oni 2 concept art". --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
The reasons differ, but the result is roughly the same. My point was that a [?prolific] artist typically breaks the boundaries between the genres and produces "anything" from wallpapers to in-game content. You can always elude that versatility by categorizing the stuff according to the artist's name, so it's OK. --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
"Wallpapers" don't necessarily qualify as fan art: think screenshots, high-res versions of splashscreens, or more or less "official" wallpapers. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
You're right; moved it out from under Fan art. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
"Humor" sounds like too general a name for humorous images. You can make that name more specific and/or allow for a more general Humor category. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Er, I made it "Humor images", is that specific enough? Don't know how else it can be improved, it seems fine that way to me. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
"Humor images" turns the word "humor" into a grammatically improbable qualifier, in which place "fun" would probably be better because it's already been "adjectivated". Apart from "fun images", my suggestion here would be to make a higher-level category called "Humor" used to categorize that kind of images, but also articles which are supposed to make people ROFL. Note that you can't categorize sections (dunno if it's unfortunate or fortunate). --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
This taps into a much larger issue that I suppose we should be considering first and foremost: how do we handle media (for now, at least, just pictures) on the wiki? I see three options:
  1. Separate images at the top level, with their own set of cat.s (as I'm doing now).
  2. Have that level 1 cat. for Images, but with no sub-cat.s, and additionally apply cat.s from the other branches to images as seems appropriate.
  3. Just file the images into the other categories. This might make it hard to manage images, but I'm not sure we *need* to use cat.s to get handles on images; there are other ways to find files on the wiki, at any rate, so maybe all that matters is that images are cat.d, not separately cat.d.
I could guess which option you might prefer, but I might guess wrong, so I'll just patiently wait for your answer and go from there. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
"Illustrations" is an ambiguous name, and it is counterintuitive (and in many cases wrong) how is implicitly excludes art, screenshots, etc. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
You're right, the word "illustrations" usually implies art. I have changed it back to using the current name, "Article illustrations". --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
Sadly, I have the same reserve with respect to "article illustrations": it doesn't explicitly exclude art (and it's not like illustrations can't be artful btw); the implicit restrictions actually boil down to the fact that this is a "default" category for images than are not featured in any of our fancy categories, but are "merely" used to illustrate an article, which is the primary purpose of an image anyway. (I still think we've been uploading too much junk "for completeness", and that we should make "every" uploaded image count - by illustrating articles.) However, generic as it is, this category name also somehow discourages using the image in another article than the one it was uploaded for. Thus my impression is that "article illustrations" are a bad category: I would suggest using the basic "Images" category, together with some categories specific to the article(s) the image is being featured in ("OBD", "Oni universe", "TCTF", "Weapons", etc). --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
This ties into my post above this one, so no comment on this for now. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
Frames from the intro and outro don't really qualify as in-game content, as well as the splashscreens. Also, what about other games than Oni? --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Sorry, this is the only place I flat-out disagree with you. In-game is anything you see after double-clicking the Oni icon. As for other games/media, I've made two cat.s for those below. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
I'm afraid it's not just me against the rest of the world here: Oni itself describes the main menu as "out-of-game UI", so there is room for controversy. IMO, in-game is what's explicitly rendered by the game engine (first and foremost interactive gameplay sequences, and cutscenes if they're rendered in real-time). That sorta excludes intro, outro, and splashscreens, which are auxiliary media, clearly separated from the playable game per se. I guess we could both be hapé with a name like "Game art" or "Oni game art" (which would include icons, box art, installation splashscreen, etc). I personally would be happy with something like "Oni game content", but this would no longer fit under "Images" (and would also make us look like reckless content rippers). Maybe just ignore me. --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
It seems like the word "in" is the only thing bothering you, so I'll happily agree to a slight variation on your idea above: "Oni game images" ("art" is also too specific ^_^). --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
I'm afraid I can't make a definitive statement on any trunk after "Images" as a whole. Just a few casual remarks right now. More, later, maybe. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
"Oni support" sounds like an "Out-of-universe Oni" or "Technically Oni" kind of thing. Have a quick look at Dunepedia. What about modding tutorials? --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Also, Halopedia uses the category "The Real World" to discuss Halo as a game, not a story. I think saying "real world" is the clearest term we can go with. Trying that for now. Still not sure yet where pages about merely Oni-related stuff would go, like "Myth" or "Nausicaa". --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
I wouldn't call "Templates" an "Administrative" category. Also, the categories should be named as explicitly as possible and in "... templates" --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Templates are definitely administrative, unless you propose making another level-1 cat. for them, which to me isn't justified. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
Templates are often created by regular editors as a typesetting commodity, not set up by admins with maintenance in mind. They are a basic feature of MediaWiki, and I don't think you should label the whole lot of them as something "administrative". The only "administrative" templates are what you called "administrative templates", really. Maybe you are looking for another name than "Administrative", something like "Wiki-world" (as opposed to Real-world and Oni-world). It may also be that the "Images" subtree actually belongs in that "wiki-space": like "Templates", the root of that hierarchy is redundant of a fundamental built-in functionality of MediaWiki. The three trunks "Real-world", "Oni-world" and "Wiki-world" make sense to me. The last trunk (wiki-world) is perhaps the most clear-cut: a purely utilitary categorization of the wiki's basic resources (e.g., images categorized as resources, regardless of their specific usage in articles; by genre or by author, but not according to what exactly is pictured; additional categorization will come from the "in-universe" tree, mostly). As you noticed, the whole "added value" business blurs the line between "in-universe" and "real-world"; and modding also deals with "in-universe" entities and interpretations. I have no clear suggestion at this point, but it seems hard, if not futile, to keep branches of "in-universe" from contaminating other trunks. --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
Sorry, don't like "Wiki-world", but what about "Wiki maintenance" or "Wiki support"? And yes, perhaps "Images" should go under that, I am not decided yet, but the idea is not a bad one. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
More importantly, you are questioning the overall approach to the level 1 cat.s. Leaving "Images" aside for now, we're looking the other four main cat.s. Your point that modding is partly in-universe, and that added value is also tied up in the Oni-verse leads me to this suggestion: rather than making Modding a level 1 cat., how about these cat.s at level 1: Oni-verse, Wiki support, and Beyond Oni-verse. This last cat. would have as a sub-cat the Modding branch, articles about Oni as a game, as well as Added value, as well as Oni 2's whole namespace. Whatcha think? --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
I would have other remarks, e.g., about "Added value" or "AE" vs "Modding projects", but that'd be more or less subjective and polemical. Later. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
I'm not that confident about where I placed "Added value". And "AE" should probably be under "Current modding projects"; trying it under there for now to see how it looks; note that only pages directly related to your AE work would be there, none of that "all modding belongs to the AE" nonsense. :-3 --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
"all modding belongs to the AE" is not nonsense, it's just that Oni is not mod-friendly, so mods will inevitably interfere unless they're part of a single framework. And "my" AE work is nil, so go ahead and delete the whole namespace while you're at it ^_^ - seriously, AE will be a gathering or it will not be. If you don't like "AE", we can change the namespace to "Mods", but it wouldn't change the fact of the matter: think of it as a standard in organization and quality without which a mod just isn't viable (according to ME, of course, according to ME; I've been wrong before; but, I'll say it again, Oni is fundamentally not mod-friendly -_-). --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
I think your last point is pointless, I don't care how hard Oni is to mod; I see a very clear distinction between "your" work (read: the specific package you release that is called the Edition) and any mods that may use that framework. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
Generally, categorizing modding projects right now is hard, because the tools are in development and the perspectives are unclear. Scope creep. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Nah, it's not that hard. :-3 --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
The big problem with modding projects these days is that people tend to misinterpret the word "project": typically they mean to goof around a bit, make a buggy release or two, and then "move on" to other interests. Categorizing that kind of stuff looks very unrewarding to me. I never spent much time on testing/documenting/reviewing BSL scripts, and my attitude towards "mods in general" will probably be the same: I shall remain interested in the AE bandwagon and in other reasonably "big" projects, but I'll ignore stuff that I consider ignorable. My loss, I guess, but it's fairly realistic given my (lack of) free time; if you can keep "all" the mods organized, that's good for you. My only note at this point will be that all non-minor mods will be more or less "bi-platform" or "comprehensive", so multi-categorization looks like a must, and then "comprehensive" becomes redundant (carrying about the same amount of information as "cool", sorta). --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
Even if we end up using the "bi-platform" cat. a lot, that's okay. I still want to mark the handful of Mac-only and PC-only mods (such as engine patches) as being separate.
The reason I want to use the "comprehensive" cat. is simply so that we *don't* have to cat. a certain mod multiple times ("Character mod", "Weapon mod", "Animation mod", et cetera ad nauseam). I don't actually care about using cat.s to specifically describe all the elements in a mod, I just want to make most mods (and make no mistake, most mods will *not* be falling under the notion of "comprehensive") readily available to a wiki reader by allowing them to see mods by type by browsing categories. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)
I think we both know by now that the Cat Tree is not really a tree, i.e., multiple parents are actually allowed. Please take this into account. --geyser 22:54, 10 November 2008 (CET)
Yeah, still trying to fully wrap my head around the methodology. --iritscen 00:09, 11 November 2008 (CET)
Frankly, if your aim is to accurately categorize every article on the wiki and to keep everything categorized, you have my blessing, but then you'll have me worrying about your mental sanity ^_^ It's an awful lot of work, and I'm still not sure we have (or will ever have) enough dedicated members to carry on this effort. And although it might make the wiki easier to manage for casual editors (or casual administrators ^_^), I fear it will never fully replace the kind of universal awareness and inspiration I've been relying on. It will probably help though - whenever it's done. --geyser 04:43, 12 November 2008 (CET)
This is an all-or-nothing solution, geyser, if it didn't cover all images and articles I wouldn't bother with it. And it's not as much work if I set up templates with short names for all the commonly-used cat.s ({{delete}} is freakin' handy). As you acknowledged, this will be useful for us as admins; I'll chip away at it over time as I work on other more reader-benefiting things like working on actual content (of course, readers can also browse the wiki by category, which is something we'll advertise whenever it's done). The days when one man's "universal awareness" could run this wiki are over, admit it :-p. --iritscen 18:08, 12 November 2008 (CET)

Category Tree Proposal

I believe all current categories are in this tree. I also renamed some, and obviously had to make a few new ones. --Iritscen
bold = new cats
italics = renamed cats
plain = current cats

Contents

Images
Art
Chibi art
Concept art
Oni concept art
Oni 2 concept art
Dark Horse comics
Art by artist
Art by Lorraine
Art by Guido
Art by Craig Mullins
Art by Rina
Fan art
Fan renders
Second-hand art
Project Konoko V
Wallpapers
Humor images
Promotional art
Avatars and sigs
Glyphs
Article illustrations -- made for articles, should not be art, but rather diagrams or screenshots of apps such as OUP
OBD hex images -- current name, "OBD data images", is redundant
In-game images -- formerly "In-game art"
Fly-in portraits
Intro sequence
Outro sequence
Screenshots
Splashscreens
Logos & icons -- need to change the ampersand to "and", though
Images from other games -- it's verbose, I know ("Non-Oni game images"?); if you have a more concise idea, I'd like to hear it
Images from other media -- "Non-Oni media"? would include the animé screenshots, pictures of the Nausicaä manga, etc.
Oni modding
BSL
Modding projects
Modding projects by status
Current modding projects
Anniversary Edition
AE to-do
Finished modding projects
Outdated modding projects
Modding projects by platform
Mac-only mods
Windows-only mods
Bi-platform mods
Modding projects by type
Animation mods
Character mods
Comprehensive mods
Level mods -- I don't like this name, got a better idea?
Scripting mods -- currently "Scripts"
Texture mods
Translation mods
Weapon mods
Modding tools
Modding tools by platform
Mac-only modding tools
Windows-only modding tools
Bi-platform modding tools
Modding tools by status
Completed modding tools
Modding tools under development
Outdated modding tools
OBD
Real-world Oni -- for all pages with facts about Oni, that are not facts from within the Oni universe
Gameplay tools
Help -- containing pages like Troubleshooting and Gameplay
Tutorials
Pre-beta
Patches and upgrades
Oni universe
Added value
Characters
Events
Factions
BGI
TCTF
SWAT
Syndicate
Strikers
Elite
WCG -- or should it be Civilian?
Oni 2
Weapons -- for your wanted cat. "Campbell Equalizer", etc.
Administrative
Candidates for discussion
Candidates for speedy deletion
Policies and guidelines
Templates
Administrative templates -- such as {{delete}}
Formatting templates -- anything not a table, header or footer
Header and footer templates
Macro templates -- currently "Standard terms"
Notice templates -- such as {{SeeTalkPage}}
Table templates