Wiktionary talk:Topics

Style of page
Think of this entry as a request for comments (RFC). I'd like to suggest that this page be separated into two pages (or possibly more later).

The two pages are 1) Wiktionary Specialized Use Categories and 2) Word Categories.

I'll briefly discuss each.

Specialized use describes words with different meanings depening on context or discipline. For example: Zoology, Chemistry, Music. We could ultimately have a semi-controlled list of these categories. The intent here is to provide guidance for lexicographers: Should I call a specialized meaning Computers, Computer Science, or Information Technology?

Word Categories would be a sort of inverse dictionary: This is roughly akin to the current entry for Economics. It could be a help when looking for a term. I'm less clear about this use than the first one.

I'll illustrate the first (Specialized Vocabulary) by creating definitions for 'ontology'. I'd appreciate some feedback on this idea before I change existing topics.

why does chemistry topic not appear ?
 * Go ahead and add it if it's not already there! That's the beauty of Wiktionary :) -- Paul G 09:04, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Math edit
I've added subcategories for mathematics and am in the process of adding many links to to mathematical words. Now, as almost every word on the page is linked and (eventually, I suppose) will contain a link to just about every word in the dictionary, isn't there a danger that the page will become unviewable as the server struggles to process it? If so, what can be done about this? Should the page be subdivided into separate pages for each section, or something else? -- Paul G 09:04, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Cleanup!
Since this page is linked from Main Page, it really ought to be pretty clean. The edits made since January 1 do not (IMNSHO) make the page easier to understand, navigate or edit. The page has been made very difficult to edit. It has been made incomprehensible (whereas in the January 1 version, all topics were condensed into a single place.)

Perhaps migrating to categories is the way to go. It is very hard to say, when it has been left in a half-done state, like this.

At the very minimum, all things that were level one, two, three, four or five headings on this page (as of 1/1/2005) should be linked on this page, to wherever they live now. From that point, it can be vertically condensed, perhaps to fit on only a couple screens. But right now the loss of information is scary.

Despite the good intentions, the edits that have been done have resulted in an awful page, from what was once an awesome page.

--Connel MacKenzie 16:51, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I cleaned a bit up. I know it's far from perfect, but I hoped it would inspire a bit more activity on this page. Lucidish 22:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this just be merged with Category:*Topics for easier maintenance? -- Beland 05:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The one real advantage this page has is that all the topics should be listed in a single hierarchical system. This makes it easy for a person to see them all at once.  This used to be a double advantage (back when you had to follow links to see sub-subcategories), but now you can see subcategory menus pop down.  It still has the advantage of allowing for a strictly topical arrangement, instead of a quasi-alphabetical one.  It also red-lists useful categories that have yet to be created.  I think the two should remain separate, because each provides a useful way to survey, but everyone is right who thinks this needs tremendous cleanup.  It's not a small task either.  If I had a personal copy of the Dewey Catalog (or LC system), I could create a version parallel to that, but neither system is universally known. --EncycloPetey 21:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

more
this page and the thinking behind are rather undeveloped.

if interested, a list of topics found in 4 (soon to be 6) dictionaries is here: User:Ishwar.

I also suggest that applying a single hierarchial system to all languages may not be desirable. Each language is situated with a culture that has its own system of categorization of the world (e.g. bird is subtype of reptile in a genetic taxonomy, but in the English language the set of birds is not a subset of the set of reptiles; tomato as a fruit vs. vegetable; some languages do not even have distinct between animal and plant, etc.) Ishwar 01:17, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In the interest of this not being deleted, I thought I might clean it up. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The page is now so big, it's hard to load it. Sigh, bollox. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Also the changes you made that insert the literal category trees display the foreign language subcategories. For simplicity, I think this page is intended to show the category structure for just one language (English) w/o the FL subcats at each level. The relation to the FL subcats can be better and more simply explained with a paragraph of text somewhere. Thanks for attempting a cleanup, though. Maybe something can be generated automatically from the templates? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

RFDO discussion
Just doesn't do anything useful, I had a go at revamping it to avoid it being nominated for deletion, and IMO, I failed. See Wiktionary talk:Topics for more information. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If it did anything beyond simply listing the categories (like an explanation, or similar) it might be useful. But at the moment, this is useless. delete -- Prince Kassad 18:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The page is linked to from Wiktionary:Main Page. If you find the pointless (the one that you have created), I propose to revert the page to . Then we can update the page to help us manage the topical category tree, and to see the historical development of the topical category tree. --Dan Polansky 08:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought that version was lame in a different way - inadequate, pointless. We can remove links from the main page you know. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:55, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do note that the Grammatical Index link on the Main Page right next to the topical one links to a category. Presumably, this link could do the same. -- Prince Kassad 10:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

RFD failed albeit pretty narrowly; Mglovesfun, Prince Kassad and Rockpilot wanted to delete it Dan Polasnky wanted to keep it. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * delete, outdated, contains far less information than what is representative. Delink it from Main Page please. --Rockpilot 10:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

RFD discussion: February 2018–March 2022
Obsolete, useless. Has been RFD'd before, kept for lack of consensus. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Ultimateria (talk) 22:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I would say delete because it seems redundant to the new hierarchical category trees, and less powerful. How do you do the @ ping thing? Dan Polansky wanted to keep this last time. Equinox ◑ 22:32, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Where would one find are the current hierarchical category trees? Perhaps we could redirect from this page to the those locations. DCDuring (talk) 22:52, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I am talking about the Category namespace. For example, Category:en:Dogs. Equinox ◑ 02:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Where is the current hierarchy laid out? It isn't a simple hierarchy either, is it? We have graphics for etymologies; why not for categories? The page under challenge was an attempt to develop and present a category structure in a transparent way. Where was that attempt continued? DCDuring (talk) 03:02, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * DC, there is certainly a case to say "let's take the content from the RFD-challenged page and build it into the existing category system" (I think that's always implicit; when we delete a page from RFV we may well move the stuff to a Citations page). But if you want to argue that you hate the Category namespace then please do it in a vote or somewhere, don't hijack this single-page RFD for it. &mdash; Yes, the catspace isn't a "simple hierarchy" because that isn't really possible: you can't arrange everything in a single stack in a way that everyone likes. We could use some Library Science input here. In any case it makes much more sense to have an expandable multilingual namespace than one random page hanging around on its own, like this challenged Topics page. Equinox ◑ 03:52, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Though I don't love our category structure, I mostly dislike how hard it is to understand the hierarchy and the necessary departures from a simple tree structure. The page under challenge, as it is now, doesn't do anything that other pages don't do, except for perhaps saving a single page load. However, in its history it attempted to lay out a hierarchy in a comprehensible manner. I miss that. But it didn't and doesn't connect very well to the hierarchy as actually implemented. We have had a similar problem with etymologies, which now can be addressed in great detail in a semi-graphical way, using indentation. I would like such a mapping for topical (and linguistic) categories. I raise the question here and now, because this page reminded me of something we need IMO. DCDuring (talk) 05:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that this depends on, which is unable to handle any category that starts with "en:". This bug was reported years ago, but it resides in low-level code that I'm guessing they're reluctant to mess with, especially since   is an optional add-on. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to get the category tree without all the language subcategories? DCDuring (talk) 15:51, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * See Module:family tree for a method used on a different, but analogous tree structure. Also, I have a rather crude wikitable-based representation of the Lifeforms part of the "sets" tree in my userspace at User:Chuck Entz/Lifeform Category Tables. It has a subpage for plants and one for animals, with the entirety of the lifeform branch covered. The main limitation of such methods is that they only show the state as of the last edit to the page. If I want to see the latest, I have to do a null edit. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe keep it if it can be improved, if not then delete it I guess. Ffffrr (talk) 04:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect the page to Category:All topics. &mdash; surjection &lang; &rang; 11:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, attention on it would be wasted. Fay Freak (talk) 05:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 22:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

RFD-deleted, made it a redirect. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 10:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)