Forum:Performers categories

I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, but my ADD kept setting in. :-P Anyway, I have been wondering, since articles are generally not supposed to be categorized in both a main category and a subcategory of that category, why then do we have performer articles categorized as "Performers" and "ENT/TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/Movies performers"? In fact, do we really need the subcategories at all? They just seem kind of a redundant to me, since as Cid pointed out to me on IRC, they're all different categories for one profession. We only have one category for directors, one for writers, and one for production staff. I think the same should go for the performers (although the "stunt performers" subcategory can remain since that is a different profession). Any thoughts? --From Andoria with Love 05:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of subcategories, and to be honest, it might be a good idea for directors and writers too. But I don't see why performers are categorized as both performers and performer.  If one is a subcategory of the other, they should only be in the subcategory. -- Sulfur 13:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is exactly how it is supposed to be anyway. Performers should simply be a "supercategory". In my up keep of the sites categories, recently, I've already found and corrected several of these redundancies in other categories. I would also like to point out a similiar redundancy in the Category:Starfleet personnel, which contains such subcategories as Category:Starfleet captains. Just like the preformers/series performers example that this topic is about, those "captains" listed in Starfleet captains should only be in Starfleet captains; not both in Starfleet personnel and captains. --Alan del Beccio 17:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I still think this is a stupid way of dealing with this. "Performer" is a profession, and everyone who has that profession should be categorized as such. "ENT performer" is not a profession - it just means that a guy who is a performer "happened" to appear on ST:ENT and not one of the other series. What was a way to categorize (in this case by profession) has become a function to create an automatic list based on criteria that might or might not make sense. The intended function of a category (have all articles of some type, here: all performers, listed in one place) is lost. -- Cid Highwind 15:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone else have anything to add? I'm trying to keep the discussion going here so we can work this out. --From Andoria with Love 06:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No, however, based on Cid's response, I can see why people here think our primary contributors have attitudes... I would hate for anyone here to think our ideas are "stupid." --Alan del Beccio 18:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Stupid" might not have been the best term to use, but call it "sub-optimal", "not the best solution", "using a feature in a way it shouldn't", whatever you like - talking about attitude: in the months (or is it years already?) that we're discussing this exact topic, I haven't heard a single reason for this system much better than "...but I really, really like to do it that way!". That's not really the best way of dealing with a situation that needs a consensus, either. -- Cid Highwind 18:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

To revive this discussion, I would like to add that we either A.) need to get rid of the series performer sub-categories, or B.) remove the main "performers" category from all the actor & actress pages. Since the series performer cats (ENT performers, DS9 performers, etc.) are sub-cats of the "performers" cat, both should not be included on the pages. (And yes, I realize I mis-spelled "resurrecting" in the edit summary. shaddap. :P) --From Andoria with Love 23:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As I noted above, I think that the subcategories work well, and would suggest removal of the performers category from articles. -- Sulfur 23:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As a followup a few months later... It seems to me that nothing's been done to date on this matter. So, I mention another reason why the current system is bad, and why we should keep the subcategories:  The main performers category is terribly ungainly and long.  Very long.  At least the subcategories break it up a bit and allow some sorting and shorter lists. -- Sulfur 02:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Revival
IT LIVES!!! Okay, folks, to reiterate what I said last year, we need to either A.) need to get rid of the series performer sub-categories, or B.) remove the main "performers" category from all the actor & actress pages. Everybody, pick one. Do it now! --From Andoria with Love 02:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I choose "B". Obviously from my comments above. -- Sulfur 02:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, this one again... ;) I'd still prefer "A", for all the reasons stated above. In the end, if someone wants to use a performer category (whether it is the main- or the sub-category) for a search, he'll need to know the name anyway, so it being "too long" doesn't matter much, in my opinion. -- Cid Highwind 11:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I also still prefer option "A". After all, we don't have things like "TOS composers", "ENT directors", "TNG writers", or "DS9 stunt performers", do we? No, they're all listed at "composers", "directors", "writers", and "stunt performers", because splitting them up would just be ridiculous. Granted, we have many more performers than we do composer, directors, etc., but I still don't see a need to separate the performers based on the series in which they happen to appear. --From Andoria with Love 12:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Pardon my ignorance, but why can't an article have two categories? Performers is a LARGE group and it makes sense to subdivide them. By the way, this isn't limited to actors. If you look at the James T. Kirk page, he is categorized under Humans, Starfleet personnel, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel, Starfleet captains, and Starfleet admirals. By my count that's 5 categories. Is this article not supposed to have more than one? If it's only supposed to have one, then which one do we choose? Enterprise personnel? Human? I guess I just don't see the problem here.


 * Also, if we were to eliminate the Performers category, then where would actors like Jeffrey Combs go? In DS9, VOY, and ENT Performers categories, right? But wait, he can only be in one category. You would have to create a Multiple Series Performers categories. Then what do you do about Rene Auberjonois or Brock Peters? They appeared in DS9 and the Movies. They can't have two categories? I'm not understanding the whole "one category" issue. --Topher 06:38, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: Topher - TOS performers, TAS performers, Movies performers, TNG performers, DS9 performers, VOY performers and ENT performers are all sub-categories of the main performers category – they are already part of that category. Sub-categories are created as branches of a main category, like sub-sections are branches of a section in an encyclopedia article. By including both the main category and sub-categories on each page, we're essentially listing that page under the "performers" category twice. --From Andoria, but not logged in


 * Yes, this is not really about "having just one category per article". It's about not using a main category ("performer") and its direct sub-category ("XYZ performer") on one article at the same time - and, generally, about the way we're dealing with categories. Should the main purpose of a category be to automatically generate lists? Or should the main purpose be to actually "categorize" pages (which of course would lead to some generic lists), and deal with more specific lists in other ways?


 * If it is the first, then it might make sense to define a category "ENT performers" to create a list for all performers that played a part in ENT... but, then, it might also make sense to create categories "ENT Season 1 performer", "Main Cast performer", "Female performer", "Deceased performer", "Performer that also directed" and so on. Where do we stop so that we don't have dozens of performer categories per article, and why do we stop there and not one "level of detail" before or after that?


 * Taking the other route, we would have one category "performer" for all people that performed a role in any one of the series. It would be a big category, but it would be a "true" categorization that actually groups all people with the same job description together instead of creating some artificial separation.


 * That doesn't mean that we can't use categories to create lists any longer - but there are other ways to do that. The "DPL" extension allows us to list all articles that appear in two or more categories. If we would, for example, create a category "ENT production" for all people that were involved with that series, we could create a listing of all ENT performers by letting DPL check which pages are categorized both as "performer" and "ENT production". We could then re-use either category for other listings as well, for example the ones I suggested above. -- Cid Highwind 11:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)