Wiki outline using Categories

[Tim Slagle]

I have been learning about MediaWiki features, and I'd like to propose that we add and maintain an outline structure to the HacDC wiki using Category: tags.  

If you add a tag like [[Category:Byzantium]] to a page, that page becomes part of the Byantium category, and if you visit the page Category:Byzantium it will give you an index of all the pages with that tag.  You can add whatever content you want to top of the index page, so the Category:Whatever pages can serve as the top-level or main pages to a whole collection of pages on a topic, and the index at the end is updated automatically as pages are added.

Category: tags can be hierarchical, for example all of the Byzantium pages would have [[Category:Byzantium]] embedded, but the actual Category:Byzantium page that indexes all the Byzantium pages could have a [[Category:Projects]] tag so it would show up in the list of projects.  This can be used to build an outline of the whole wiki site.  

Starting at the top level category gives you a click-through index of the topics and pages on the wiki site.  There is also a Category Tree extension:   

 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CategoryTree
to provide a clickable outline tree for navigation, which I think we could install.

The outline could go on the main wiki page, or a separate Outline page I suppose.  It would not only show the structure of the whole wiki but it would be a reference for the category names that people should use when classifying new pages.  People would edit the outline and add Categories as new stuff gets added to the wiki.  Ideally, every page in the wiki would belong to one (or more) categories.  There is a Special:UncateorizedPages page that lists uncategorized pages to make it easier to keep this up.  

I've gone through the list of pages (there's not too many actually) and here are my proposed Category: labels. I haven't put in all the subcategories that we might use yet, I was focusing more on the top-level outline. We already have a bunch of categories in use that may fit into this outline without changes, while others might need to be tweaked or refactored a bit.

Category:Topics

1. HacDCInfo
1. HacDCDocs
2. HacDCSpace
3. HacDCStuff
4. HacDCSystems
2. Classes
1. AVRClass
2. BikeMaintainenceClass
3. FPGAClass
4. RobotClass
5. ...
3. Equipment
1. Lathe
2. Reprap
3. Makerbot
4. ...
4. Events
1. ShmooCon
2. ...
5. People
1. HacDCMembers
2. HacDCBOD
3. FormerMembers
4. HacDCFriends
6. Projects
1. Byzantium
2. SpaceBlimp
3. ...
7. Useful Info
1. TravelInfo
2. ...
8. Obsolete

If people think this is worth doing, I can start creating the outline and category pages, and applying the Category: tags to the existing pages.  I would obviously need help getting everything updated and keeping it up going forward, so I would like to get some consensus that this is a good idea first.

--Tim

[Tim Slagle]

Here is a page with the proposed outline:
http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Outline
Most sub-categories don't go anywhere yet but I made Category: pages
for the MainTopics.
--Tim

[Eric Miller]

I don't have any objections.  I made a few changes to the display part of the category links.  LMK if you like that better (I do).

[Justin Myers]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 10:15, Tim Slagle <t...@slagle.org> wrote:

I would obviously need help getting everything updated and keeping it up going forward, so I would like to get some consensus that this is a good idea first.

 

Sounds awesome. No objections here.

[Alberto Gaitán]

Good plan, Tim!

On 4/2/12 10:15 AM, Tim Slagle wrote:
> I have been learning about MediaWiki features, and I'd like to propose
> that we add and maintain an outline structure to the HacDC wiki using
> Category: tags.
>
> If you add a tag like [[Category:Byzantium]] to a page, that page
> becomes part of the Byantium category, and if you visit the page
> Category:Byzantium it will give you an index of all the pages with that
> tag. You can add whatever content you want to top of the index page, so
> the Category:Whatever pages can serve as the top-level or main pages to
> a whole collection of pages on a topic, and the index at the end is
> updated automatically as pages are added.

> *
> *
> *Category: tags can be hierarchical, for example all of the Byzantium

> pages would have [[Category:Byzantium]] embedded, but the actual
> Category:Byzantium page that indexes all the Byzantium pages could have
> a [[Category:Projects]] tag so it would show up in the list of projects.

> This can be used to build an outline of the whole wiki site. *
> *
> *

> Starting at the top level category gives you a click-through index of
> the topics and pages on the wiki site. There is also a Category Tree
> extension:
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CategoryTree
> to provide a clickable outline tree for navigation, which I think we
> could install.
>
> The outline could go on the main wiki page, or a separate Outline page I
> suppose. It would not only show the structure of the whole wiki but it
> would be a reference for the category names that people should use when
> classifying new pages. People would edit the outline and add Categories
> as new stuff gets added to the wiki. Ideally, every page in the wiki
> would belong to one (or more) categories. There is a
> Special:UncateorizedPages page that lists uncategorized pages to make it
> easier to keep this up.
>
> I've gone through the list of pages (there's not too many actually) and
> here are my proposed Category: labels. I haven't put in all the
> subcategories that we might use yet, I was focusing more on the
> top-level outline. We already have a bunch of categories in use that may
> fit into this outline without changes, while others might need to be
> tweaked or refactored a bit.
>
> Category:Topics
>

> 1. HacDCInfo
> 1. HacDCDocs
> 2. HacDCSpace
> 3. HacDCStuff
> 4. HacDCSystems
> 2. Classes
> 1. AVRClass
> 2. BikeMaintainenceClass
> 3. FPGAClass
> 4. RobotClass
> 5. ...
> 3. Equipment
> 1. Lathe
> 2. Reprap
> 3. Makerbot
> 4. ...
> 4. Events
> 1. ShmooCon
> 2. ...
> 5. People
> 1. HacDCMembers
> 2. HacDCBOD
> 3. FormerMembers
> 4. HacDCFriends
> 6. Projects
> 1. Byzantium
> 2. SpaceBlimp
> 3. ...
> 7. Useful Info
> 1. TravelInfo
> 2. ...
> 8. Obsolete

[mirage335]

Awesome.The proposed category labels seem to fit rather well. I can
help adding the tags if anyone wants.

[Tim Slagle]

Also, I would put all the original MIBS/C4K/Minister pages into
Category:Obsolete, then I'd say we wouldn't need a separate namespace
or whatever. It would be nice to have a little template that we could
put on the top of the pages that would text saying something like
"These pages are obsolete but kept around for their historical
interest" and also include the [[Category:Obsolete]] tag, so we can
just insert one line at the beginning of each page.
--Tim

[Tim Slagle]

Thanks, the spaces do look better. I think Mediawiki automagically
turns spaces to underscores in page names but I wanted to put them in
explicitly so people could cut and paste from the page source.
--Tim

[ITechGeek]

We have 194 pages to decide categories for:
http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php?title=Special:UncategorizedPages&limit=500&offset=0

Existing used categories:
http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Special:Categories

Existing unused categories:
wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Special:UnusedCategories

Existing wanted categories:
wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Special:WantedCategories

[Nick Mapsy]

Just sounding off that this plan looks great. Just what I was hoping for.

Also, in case further clarification is helpful, article titles (including categories) can include spaces. The URL's for the articles don't, and spaces are replaced with underscores.

Nick

[ITechGeek]

Also since I like to redirect the category page to the main page for
the project (such as if you went to the category page for Spaceblimp),
I found out the redirects are case sensitive w/ the redirect to
article names.

[Katie Bechtold]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 4:29 PM, ITechGeek <i...@itechgeek.com> wrote:
> ...I like to redirect the category page to the main page for
> the project...

I have to strongly object to this practice! It seems to me to defeat
the purpose of using categories. I'd much prefer we follow the example
of, say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Patterns, which is a
category page that both prominently points users to the main article
within that category *and* lists the subcategories and articles within
that category.

--
Katie      http://about.me/katiebechtold

[ITechGeek]

I will have to admit, I do like how you can expand subcategory trees on that.

[Tim Slagle]

I'm with Katie, we can put everything from the existing main topic page into the Category: page, and then you get a nice index at the bottom that is automatically maintained.  With a redirect you don't get the index (unless it is done by hand) so you can't just click down to what you want to see.

--Tim

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Katie Bechtold <bokun...@gmail.com> wrote:

[ITechGeek]

How about doing this: http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Category:Spaceblimp

In that case, I included the Spaceblimp main page in the category page

[Tim Slagle]

That works pretty well.  Only issue might be that it is a little confusing - the same content is on different pages.  But I guess people will figure it out when they try to edit...

--Tim

[Tim Slagle]

After playing around a bit, when you do this you get two entries in the page index - one as a subcategory (Category:Spaceblimp) and one as a page (Spaceblimp).  I think it is confusing to have two separate entries and pages that are the same info.  So I'd still vote for having the Category:Spaceblimp page replace the Spaceblimp page (just cut and paste), and then maybe have a redirect from Spaceblimp to Category:Spaceblimp.

--Tim

[ITechGeek]

I got rid of the sub-category Spaceblimp by doing a no include on the
Spaceblimp page for the template.

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Tim Slagle <t...@slagle.org> wrote:
> Category:Spaceblim

[ITechGeek]

For right now, I got rid of the include for the Spaceblimp category
page and removed the redirects on the other two categories I did.

[Nick Mapsy]

Yeah, I'd strongly vote for pasting the content of the original article (e.g. "Spaceblimp") into the top of the category page ("Category:Spaceblimp"), then replacing the original article with a redirect to the category page.

So then we have a natural tree of articles on each topic, each with a list at the bottom to every article in its sub-category.

And I was thinking the tree would start with the current homepage, "Welcome to the HacDC Wiki". Here's a prototype of what I'm imagining: NickS/Welcome to the HacDC Wiki (I made it in my own userspace until it's approved by everyone here). Every category in the outline has its own descriptive section and lists the sub-pages. Maybe we only need to list a few sub-pages to highlight them, since the section itself links to the second-level categories. What do you think?

Nick

[Tim Slagle]

I think it would be nice to have the CategoryTree (from the extension)
on the front page, then we wouldn't have to make and maintain our own
tree. I think we'd still want to be able to feature new stuff and
popular pages in sections like "Cool Stuff" and "Top Links". I'd tend
to want to remove or at least rename "Past Cool Stuff That Will Happen
Again", I think experience has shown that the title is not accurate...
--Tim

[Nick Mapsy]

Okay, cool. I like it being automated, instead of hand-curating the links. So it'll be like any other category page, where you have a descriptive article, then an automatically-compiled list at the bottom of all articles in the category?

Nick