Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-5825217-20131020030042/@comment-5825217-20131024004856

LOLSKELETONS wrote: A few things I'd like to say in regards to this thread and category organization in general (broken into sections):

Category suggestions
My thoughts on some of the categories suggested ITT.


 * Disease
 * This seems fine. It would be a nice counterpart to Mental Illness.


 * Hallucinations
 * This may be a bit too specific, and could be easily covered under Mental Illness or Dreams/Sleep (or both). Then again, Mental Illness already needs to be made less broad in its application. Maybe we could make this a subcategory? (Note that if a page is in a category that is a subcategory of another, it's unnecessary to categorize it under both the sub and super-category).
 * I could also see this frequently overlapping with Dreams/Sleep, which may or may not become problematic. This idea has its pros and cons, with maybe slightly more cons than pros.


 * Mythology
 * I haven't formed a full opinion on this, but I think if it's created, the distinction between this and cryptozoology should be made absolutely clear, if we keep cryptids at all. If we don't, it should be broadened to include legends (which cryptids fit in nicely). See this section for more info on that.


 * Suicide
 * I could see this one being easily abused. I also feel like it may be a bit too specific, like it's a part of another theme that could prove useful (that's not death). It might just be a feeling, since I can't quite put my finger on what that theme is. l If used correctly, I suppose this could prove to be a useful category.


 * Homicide/Murder
 * I can see this being abused as well, and even more severely than suicide. I mean, I guess it could be useful for when it's the focus of the story, but how many people will just add it to any story where someone is murdered? I don't want this to become Death 2: Electric Boogaloo.


 * Serial Killers
 * Too specific. Not every story revolving around a 'being' who happens to be a human is necessarily about a serial killer. Maybe if "People" was redefined to be about human 'beings', and made a subcategory of Beings, it could be useful. And that's assuming it won't be abused, which I can guarantee you it will.

Beings and its associated categories

 * See for info about Category:Gods

In my opinion, the group of six 'mutually exclusive' categories for certain types of creatures/entities (Beings, Demon/Devil, Monsters, Cryptids, Ghosts, and Gods) is a mess. It may require starting from scratch to clean up.

First off, there are too many beings categories. Too many overly-specific categories in general, but I'll get to that later. We don't need six different categories for every type of creature. Is it about a being? Then it goes in beings. The only other one that I can see being of use is Ghosts. And even that I think should be moved to a broader category name, so it's not just about the ghosts themselves, but also the activities they engage in. "Ghosts and Hauntings", maybe.

The thing about having so many many beings categories is that, not only are most of them unnecessary, but all of them overlap frequently, and many of them are ill-defined. It would be a lot easier and more practical to just have one.

Miscellaneous
Other categories I feel should be done away with/merged/cleaned up.

Books
Why do we have this? It's apparently for stories about books that aren't diaries or journals, but, I mean, we already have Items/Objects. I think that's all we need for "books".

Lovecraftian and Gods
Lovecraftian has to be the vaguest category on here. Inspired by Lovecraft? What is that supposed to mean? A lot of stories could claim to be inspired by Lovecraft.

If anything, we should merge this and Gods into something more useful. I'm thinking something along the lines of Cosmic Horror, seeing as pretty much 100% of pastas pertaining to gods/deities (that are worth categorizing) are cosmic horror stories. At least from what I can tell.

''Anything I didn't mention here I probably already covered here. Well, besides Shock Ending.'' Skyscraper quote/response time!

On Hallucinations, you have a fair point. We'd have to make it entirely clear what the difference between a hallucination and a dream is, and trust the community to use good judgement. (Which means that everything will go to hell. T_T I have no trust in humanity.)

Mythology and Cryptozoology: Mythology and Legends are pretty much the same thing. Mythology can be used to describe a much broader spectrum of pastas than Cryptozoology. Cryptozoology focuses specifically on creatures that may or may not exist, with evidence being only speculative. Mythology can be about any sort of old legend, like a rock or something. But you're right, we need a clear distinction.

On Suicide, I have to disagree until you can pinpoint this category that you can't quite figure out. Until then, I'll leave it (unless you can get a popular vote to remove it). It can be a good category if used correctly.

Homicide/Murder: I'm still sketchy on this one myself. As you said, it could become "Death 2: Electric Boogaloo," which wouldn't be a good idea. I'll put out a poll or something.

Serial Killers - Hmm. In retrospect, this could be overly specific. I'll take it out.

On Books, I'm afraid I disagree. There are a lot of pastas revolving around old books, such as necronomicons or demonological tomes. Just for this items/objects subcategory, I recommend it stays.

Lovecraftian is kind of an unusual category, but anything that mentions Cthulhu or any sort of Mythos anything that's present in any of Lovecraft's works needs to be tagged Lovecraft. For now I'll let it alone.

Gods - I like your suggestion on Cosmic Horror, but unless you can merge Gods with something else (seeing as I'm leaving Lovecraftian alone for now) I'll leave that alone too.

Thanks for the feedback.