Category talk:North America

Categorization Scheme

It's been suggested in one of the talk pages to make a Unites States category, put all the states under that, and all U.S. graticules under their respective states. Thomcat, Sartakh and I are kicking ideas around. Anyone? -- Jevanyn 17:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

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Washington, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, and chunks of California are now done under the new scheme. Each contains only the state (or states) and either active or inactive. Category:Washington gets you to the city list, and Category:United States gets you to the list of states. Eventually, Category:North America will just list Canada, United States, Mexico, and probably Central America. Presumably, Category:World will then list North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, etc. --Thomcat 17:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

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Is it possible to have major and minor subcategories? For U.S. cities, I think it makes sense for each graticule to be categorized under all states that it intersects. For example, Newark, New Jersey would be categorized under Category:New Jersey, Category:Pennsylvania and Category:New York, but it would be listed higher on the page for New Jersey, and lower on the page for the others. This would be helpful for someone near a state border who is in the other state's graticule. -- Jevanyn 17:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

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I haven't found anything yet, but I am still learning my way around MediaWiki. --Thomcat 17:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

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Jevanyn, I agree that categorizing graticules that intersect numerous states in all of those states is good and appropriate, but the problem there is that of possible confusion for users. What might be more appropriate would be to list the main graticule by the major population city in it and by the state of that population center. Then create redirects named for other towns/cities in the graticule that are categorized by their respective states. Of course, it might be a problem in the case of sparcely populated areas.

Thomcat, I see very large recreational possibility with geohashing (like with geocaching) and that's why I created the National Parks category. I go to Lassen frequently, and will be checking that graticule before I go now. I think that perhaps we should continue with the current naming convention (city in the graticule) and put in a redirect for the graticule that contains the park and name/categorize the redirect appropriately. I'll fix up Yosemite today. --Sartakh 17:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Previous Discussion

I'm curious about the categorization scheme you are pushing. You categorize U.S. cities as "North America / State" and remove a categorization of "United States"

Following that scheme, I would think that the cities would be categorized under their respective state only, the state categorized under "United States" and "United States" categorized under "North America" to yield a heirarchy structure.

Might I suggest this, since I will be adding a number of places here in the near future and we seem to be butting into one another. --Sartakh 07:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea. The North America category currently has links to Canada, some U.S. states, and many cities, which doesn't sound helpful. I can do some of this if you agree it's worth doing. -- Jevanyn 17:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

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Actually, my suggestion is that each U.S. city be categorized with only it's appropriate state. Each state categorized as U.S., and U.S. categorized in North America. Categorizing the cities in both state and U.S. would clutter U.S. pretty bad - like North America is now.

According to this though, North America would have only U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Adding the U.S. states to North America would really fill it though. your thoughts?

Cities definitely need to be pulled out of North America though. I'll start on that.

If this thing grows considerably, this will become a major consideration. Best to nip it now.

I created a Pacific Ocean category and put Hawaii there also, but I think that Oceania would be more accurate. Do you agree? --Sartakh 16:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

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Technically - I think - Australia, being a continent in it's own right, doesn't fit in with Oceania, though New Zealand probably does. That would apply to things like Hawaii, Marshall Islands, etc. A quick trip to the CIA fact book would be warranted I think. Bit of work now, though will save users a real headache on lookups in the future if this thing really grows - as long as folks stay with the heirarchy. It should get a life of it's own with time though.

I also think we will need a very top level "World"????, under which the various geographic areas would go. This would be useful for casual browsers as a starting point. Continents/general areas under that, then countries, then states as applicable.

--Sartakh 17:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

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I was looking at Dothan, Alabama and this raises an interesting problem that could be an issue in the future. How to name graticules that cross borders. Within the U.S. this is not an issue other than that of potential confusion, but some neighboring countries that would share graticules would not appreciate cities being categorized as being in both countries. Turkey/Greece, Israel/Jordan come to mind right off the top of my head. Naming by the graticule coords is good and then doing redirects, but graticule coords is not very user friendly.

Ideas?

--Sartakh 19:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)