A moratorium on category creation

[Barry]

I would like to ask all contributors of the wiki that they do not create any more categories for the time being. In the last couple of days, there's been an explosion of new categories which, although the intention is to bring structure, is only making things more difficult as far as categorizing articles is concerned. The trees, the woods, you know what I mean...

[UniMuta]

A wise decision.

Shouldn't we be discussing the structure a bit more before adding tons & tons of info?

(or have I missed that discussion somewhere?)

-- UniMuta

[SOFA]

Shouldn't we be discussing the structure a bit more before adding tons & tons of info?
(or have I missed that discussion somewhere?)
-- UniMuta

Sorta... We tried having a "real-time chat" about it a couple of weeks ago and Barry and I were the only active contributors who made it. We discussed  some structural issues, but - well - it was just the two of us and we tend to agree on a lot of stuff, so the "discussion" was, uhm, limited?
Barry suggested we try it again and I made a joke about attendance; but maybe we should...
I think the moratorium is also a good idea, as the info we have now needs to be fully "settled" - and we have a LOT of data. It's really starting to shape shape...

[Barry]

Barry suggested we try it again and I made a joke about attendance; but maybe we should...

I have a funny feeling it'd be SOFA and me again. I still think the current wiki status could really benefit from a realtime chat with all those contributing, but somehow I don't see that happening any time soon.

I think the moratorium is also a good idea, as the info we have now needs to be fully "settled" - and we have a LOT of data. It's really starting to shape shape...

My view on this is: start out from the very basics, and build up from there. For instance: don't be creating an "Objects And Things" subcategory for the Conceptual Continuity category when we haven't even filled in basic yet essential information for Tracks and Albums.

The "Zappa Per Album" category articles are dying to be completed, as are the "Tracks" articles. In my view, before these have been properly covered, we cannot/should not go digging any deeper. These "groundwork" articles are the fundaments upon which everything will be built. In a way this is the most difficult stage of the wiki, because much of it  will consist of dull copy/pasting from sites like Old Zircon's FZ Lyrics and - yes - Unimuta's UnitedMutations.com. However, without this groundwork, the super-imposed layers (interpretation, CC, etc) will crumble as they will have been built on, well, nothing.

If you want to have a beautiful tree in your garden, you don't start off by pruning it (it's just a little twig!) -- instead, you watch that twig grow first, have some patience and let it grow to fruition, water it, and then maybe there will come a time when it actually needs to be pruned. You can't have it the other way around.

(I am, by the way, available for online Zen teachings, for a mere $50 per hour! My email: barry.spiritual.asshat@killuglyradio.com. All fees tax deductable!)

[Chris]

I'd love to join one of the chat sessions, and certainly don't mean to be negligent after contributing so much prose, but I only have a computer here at work, from 8 to 4 weekdays, Mountain Time (USA). This time bracket's highly inconvenient for everyone else, I fear.

[emdebe]

I’m convinced that this moratorium stuff lasted long enough.

I would like to transform a number of lists into categories: "Freak List!", "Money List!", "OSFA Universe!", "TRFZB (The List)", "Them Or Us (The List)", "TTR List", and "PMRC List".

Any suggestions about the category names I should use?

Note: this would not complicate matters, since once the lists have been converted (and all pages created), there will be no more future additions to these categories.

[Barry]

emdebe: feel free to create these categories.

One thing: when you name them, create a convention and stick to it. That is to say:

- Freak Out! (The List)
- We're Only In It For the Money (The List)
- One Size Fits All (The List)
- The Real Frank Zappa Book (The List)
- Them Or Us (The List)
- TTR (The List)
- PMRC (The List)

As a matter of fact, come to think of it: would it not be a better idea to replace "The List" in the above to something like "The People" or "The Cast"?

[emdebe]

Names like

* Freak Out! Cast
* We're Only In It For the Money Cast
* One Size Fits All Cast
* The Real Frank Zappa Book Cast
* Them Or Us Cast
* Tinsel Town Rebellion Cast
* PMRC Cast

have the advantage of being logical and clear (understandable), but they do have the tendency of being long...

Too long?

[emdebe]

There will be things in lyrics (and elsewhere) were a little explanation might be a good thing to have… From Anusol to Zircon and beyond...

Instead of manually putting all these things on a list, use of a category would be appropriate…

What will we name it?

“Zappa Dictionary” or just “Dictionary”?

“Encyclopedium”?

What?

[Barry]

Given the choice between "understandability" and "too-longness", I would pick the former...

[Barry]

Not everything needs to be a category.

There is a danger of categorizing just about anything related to FZ -  this will not make matters easier, it will complicate them. There is already an abundance of categories going on at the wiki. Categories work to the extent that people who edit/create pages actually KNOW about them, and are not confused by them. Present them with a forest of categories and they will tread back, confused - not adding to the wiki.
Yes yes, we want this to be a great resource and as such we want it to be minutely detailed. What we also want is for people to contribute. If those people are faced with a daunting task of tagging each article they write with about 20 categories, they are going to simply not do it.

In this case, I think it would be perfectly okay to have an article entitled [Anusol] - CC-tagged, nothing more. Why this obsessive need to (sub)categorize everything? I understand the intention, but it ends up being counter-productive.

[emdebe]

... What we also want is for people to contribute. If those people are faced with a daunting task of tagging each article they write with about 20 categories, they are going to simply not do it...

I see this the same way as using HTML in page layout: not everyone is up to the task, and we sort-of agreed that there will be people adding text and people laying out pages. Let people contribute whatever they want without tagging pages: there will be others to keep an eye on the categorization.

[emdebe]

emdebe: feel free to create these categories.

One thing: when you name them, create a convention and stick to it. That is to say:

- Freak Out! (The List)
- We're Only In It For the Money (The List)
- One Size Fits All (The List)
- The Real Frank Zappa Book (The List)
- Them Or Us (The List)
- TTR (The List)
- PMRC (The List)

As a matter of fact, come to think of it: would it not be a better idea to replace "The List" in the above to something like "The People" or "The Cast"?

I will stick to "The List" since this is more consistent with "The Album", "The Track" or "The Band". Moreover: not everything in the lists are "people"...