Commons talk:List of meta category criteria
Possible next bot tasks
[edit]I think a good next bot task would be to examine the difference between all the categories whose names consist of "X by Y" and all the categories tagged with {{MetaCat}}. There certainly should be lots that are not tagged like that, but it would be interesting to get a handle on what those are.
- Interestingly, there are ~39,000 categories tagged with {{MetaCat}}, and the sum of the counts in the table comes to ~68,000 categories. So there's a lot of categories missing {{MetaCat}}, clearly. One pretty easy thing would be to go through each criteria, and count how many pages with that criteria don't have {{MetaCat}}. JesseW (talk) 04:52, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Another possible thing would be to make sure that all the categories whose names end with criteria listed on this page are tagged with {{MetaCat}} and have the criteria listed as the 2nd parameter.
A third thing would be to go through each criteria and try to identify the form of the categories listed within it, i.e. many of the categories in the by century made categories have the form "Nth-century Y". I'm not sure how we could best do this automatically, but it's something to think about.
Finally, it's important to note that the Special:Search links seem to be a little broader than the bot -- see for example by constituent element. JesseW (talk) 04:41, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
- About the last thing, it's true. I've limited the code so that it would only match by constituent element at the end of the page title. --zhuyifei1999 (talk) 08:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Another column that would be nice is a count of how many categories are {{Category redirect}}s (and how many aren't, so that could be sorted on, too) JesseW (talk) 04:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
- My two cents on this 'issue'...
- Note those applications using or not using a pass parameter to the MetaCat template can be detected by defining a dummy template as a redirect to {{Void}}, testing when and where it is occurring, then using the Special pages What links Here to edit by BOT or in succession to fix missing parameters and/or false (wrong) uses.
- You can also set a parserfunction test to define a category for those missing one or the other parameters, Maintenance categories which should have zero entries when the template is properly used.
Page needs to define context!
[edit]re: , and it's application ... I've always found that starting a conversation in the middle leads to misunderstandings. I've been contributing to the Wikimedia Foundation projects for nine years now, have as many years in university as my British friends might say, am a fair template coder, even 'invented' the template documentation scheme as it was first implemented on en.wikpedia back in 2006-07, but found just trying this last half hour to figure out what the help on {{MetaCat/doc}} was meaning for its ill-defined parameters (Here notated as XXX by YYY or other such ill-introduced seeming non-sense)... found myself only more confused at reading the top of this page.
IN SHORT, someone is assuming knowledge, and commonality of terminology 'without properly setting the stage. A foolish thing.
- I really don't have time for such ambiguity and confusions. God help the non-native speaker of English trying to understand this.
- Seeing the 2:1 ratio cited in the section above these last few weeks... I have to conjecture perhaps there is this problem revealed in those numbers.
- Please, PLease, PLEAse, PLEASE start off such topics with introductions that cover such basics as PURPOSE, DEFINITION OF TERMS (locally, not just a link) and so forth, so the reader has a chance at comprehending the arcane topics being communicated... for without such ... the communication is missing. In short, loose the GEEK-SPEAK and translate it to ENGLISH a 12-15 y.o. can comprehend.
- This should apply both in this guideline document and especially perhaps in the template usage—the place where most readers will see the template and concept first time! // FrankB 15:21, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
- I agree, I didn't (and don't) understand {{MetaCat}} particularly well, either. I just wanted to get a better handle on the use "by X" categories on Commons; that's why I asked for the 'bot. JesseW (talk) 05:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
by ... by ... metacategory confusion
[edit]There seems to be a lot of confusion about the correct naming of meta categories in the "by ... by ..." form.
The two project pages Commons:Naming categories and Commons:List of meta category criteria seem to be in harmony in seeming to say that:
- a meta category in the form Category:Politicians by office by country should be populated by sub-categories in the form Category:Politicians of Canada by office, Category:Politicians of Germany by political office, Category:Politicians of the United States by office, etc (and therefore NOT populated by sub-categories in the form Category:Diplomats by country, Category:Heads of state by country, Category:Secretaries of state by country, etc (which are supposed to be sub-categories of Category:Politicians by country by office)); and
- a meta category in the form Category:People by occupation by country should be populated by sub-categories in the form Category:People of Canada by occupation, Category:People of Germany by occupation, Category:People of the United States by occupation, etc (and therefore NOT by sub-categories in the form Category:Academics by country, Category:Librarians by country, Category:Postal workers by country, etc (which are supposed to be sub-categories of Category:People by occupation by country)).
However, a lot of meta categories in this form appear have their subject and metacategory criteria reversed from the way they should be for their sub-categories, and are therefore either misnamed or populated by the wrong set of subcategories, depending upon one's point of view.
Additionally, some of the meta categories in this form include 'wrong' sub-categories as additional categories sorted by a "| " sort key. So, eg, as at the date of creation of this post, there was no Category:Politicians by country by office in existence, and the categories that are supposed to be the subcategories of that non-existent meta category are included in Category:Politicians by office by country as additional, "| " sort key categories.
Might I suggest that both of these project pages be expanded somewhat, to explain in more detail, using examples such as the ones I have used above, to make this point clearer? At the moment, there seem to be literally dozens and dozens of such meta categories that need to be corrected, and I suspect that many of the wrongly named / wrongly populated such meta categories are modelled on earlier-created meta categories that are similarly wrong ... Bahnfrend (talk) 10:34, 5 September 2021 (UTC)