Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-5825217-20131020030042/@comment-5825217-20131121175638

Noothgrush wrote: LOLSKELETONS wrote: All entity-related categories are subcategories of Beings since Category:Entities was deleted. Beings is also not very clearly defined in my opinion. It seems that if the entity is "mysterious" enough to elude a specific label, it is put in Beings. That includes entities that may or may not be human, and sometimes even those that clearly are. The fact that it frequently overlaps with other entity-related categories doesn't help, either.

Perhaps creating an entities sub-section of the genre listing would be better than putting them all under beings, since making it a category didn't work (people were constantly adding it to pages when it was supposed to only serve as a directory for entity-related categories).

In any case, I would have agree that serial killers are not really 'beings' in the sense that they are usually unambiguously human. On the other hand, trying to think of a way to organize these categories is giving me a migraine, so I'm doing it this way for the time being. "Being" and "entity" are synonyms regardless. I feel like breaking it down further than that is really the way to go. Because, as we said, grouping serial killers with beings (or entities) is contradictory at best. As far as beings goes we have deities, poltergeists, demons, etc. etc. all of whom are exclusive subdivisions unable to be classified elsewhere. Maybe don't make entities a tag in its own right, so people DONT tag it, and use it more as a heading. For the purposes of this wiki, I'm not sure "entity" is synonymous with "being." People think of beings as aliens. Entities are more like paranormal monsters, like the Rake or Slenderman (which could be categorized as both, as it's humanoid). It's a debatable point, that's just where I stand.

Noothgrush wrote: That sounds a tad overcomplicated to me, but it could work. I mean, he's right, there are tons of stories specifically about parents or teachers or kids.

I think the general category idea has the most merit with subcategories. Then it's a matter of getting the community to police tags a little harder so that it doesn't tailspin out of control again. The community is the hardest part of this to control, because it would be exceedingly difficult to police every single incoming story unless there was an approval list of stories that had to be reviewed by an experienced staff member or member of an approval board or something. Then it would have to meet quality standards and be classified by someone with some sense instead of someone trying to cram as many categories as they conceivably can into a pasta so someone reads it. I'm not sure how that would be managed with the near-constant influx of new stories.

LOLSKELETONS wrote: You have a good point. I've decided that to leave serial killers as a standalone category for now (if it is created, that is). I've been trying to figure out the best way to organize these, and separating pastas about people from beings would certainly help in that regard. Also, even though I said I am warming up to the idea of a serial killers category, I feel like it doesn't quite cover everything. Someone suggested making multiple categories for different kinds of people in this thread, though I'm not sure how necessary making multiple categories would be. I was thinking maybe one general category with serial killers and maybe one other as subcats. OR, we could try to think of something more encompassing than serial killers. Trying to classify humans would just be redundant because there are just so many types of people. Also, I disagree with you stating that you've decided to leave a category. I feel like this should be a community thing, not just admins/mods. Correction: intelligent members of the community, not people who say "y u remove death!?!?!? DEATH IS PART OF CREPPYPAST!"

Danatblair wrote: I do like the proposed revisions of death and entity. Might I also suggest that serial killers is also a category that opposess madness. That kills a few birds with one stone and partially address some of the current vaugeness of madness without getting mired down in technical or clinical definitions. Good point. Instead of "homicidal psychopathy" under "Mental Illness," a Serial Killers category would be more appropriate, especially for clinical/technical purposes.

If there are any posts that I didn't quote, I've read everything since my last post (including in other reclassification topics, such as the very general ATTENTION ALL), so I'm up-to-date on what's going on.