Shaking up the category tree

[Minh Ha Duong]

> Not sure this is a good idea, since the existing category structure may
>   have been quite a mess at the time of tagging, forcing people to
> categorize in less than ideal ways. Also we have observed that even
> well-meaning authors don't always categorize well.
>
> Better, I think, is to come up with a category scheme top-down, then
> visit each page and rationalize relative to our category scheme.

What I mean is that there is already an implicit category scheme. People's 
expectations have been shaped up by years of using "Start" menus, Freshmeat, 
Tucows, Yahoo! So we need to _discover_ , not _invent_, the category scheme.

I would also think that categorizing is best done by wiki editors who have an 
idea of the tags. We should not encourage authors to do it, but do it when 
patrolling new pages.

> > - I see "Community" more as "Social groups" than "Everything that is not
> > Openmoko Inc.". So I want to move "Openmoko Inc." there too.
>
> Not sure I agree with this. What will A visitor to our website expect to
> see under "Community"? I don't think they're looking only for social
> groups; primarily, they are looking for community contributions, either
> to access or to contribute to.
>
> I would expect the community category to include local groups and user
> contributed projects, instructions on how to get involved, etc..

Yes it's a big change of thinking, from "they vs. us" to a more sociological 
pov. That's why I want to change the name of this category :)

> > - I want to rename "Technical" to something like "Environment"
>
> Hmm. What goes in here? Isn't almost everything technical? I think this
> category is meaningless.

Categories presently under Technical are about the environment, in an 
information ecosystemic way: Emulation, Carriers, Protocol... How we 
interface with things that are outside us. It needs renaming too.

> > - I want to rename "Hardware" to something like "Functional subsystem"
>
> I might go along with this, but I'd like to understand your thinking.
> What goes in here?

Subsystems, from an engineering point of view: USB, GSM, GPS, SD MMC, CPU, 
Glamo, Sound, Wifi, Accels, Power, Vibrator, Casing

> If people think of this as "hardware" then best to use the common name.

These tags also should apply to drivers, protocols, applications. 

> > - "Software" can go
>
> Agreed. Too big a category. Pretty much everything that isn't explicitly
>   hardware or social groups becomes software. A category that is
> "everything else" is not a valid category, IMHO. Was this your thinking?

Yes. Almost emptied now.

Minh
-- 
Minh HA DUONG, Chargé de Recherche, CNRS
CIRED, Centre International de Recherches sur l'Environnement et le 
Développement
http://minh.haduong.com