Forums: War Room → Category tree philosophy

I'm new here, but category organisation is one of my wiki interests elsewhere. And I'm really not understanding your category tree, particularly as it proceeds from the parent, Category:Articles. Your {{icons}} template suggests that you distinguish between real world and Avatar world. So why doesn't your category tree reflect that better?

What I would expect to see, opening up Cat:Articles, is basically just three folders, Real world, and Avatar World, and i suppose Category:Films, since that's treated so differently here as to have its own namespace. Most of the current Cat:Articles subcats would go into Cat:Avatar World, while things like Category:Avatar Extras, Category:Quotes and Category:Transcripts would obviously be real world items.

The thing I really don't understand, though, is Category:Legend of Korra. Why is that being treated separately if TLA is not treated in a similar way? Shouldn't we consider it all a part of the same shared universe? Is there really a credible organizational argument for suggesting that Category:Republic City should be under Category:Legend of Korra rather than just Category:Locations? Is there a good reason why Legend of Korra characters are segregated from just Characters?

Clearly, I'm too new here to have definite opinions on these things. But as an outsider lookin' in, the current organization immediately raises obvious questions. -- CzechOut 03:56, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

ATLA itself is treated like a baseline for this series, as such the articles/categories were created with the first series in mind for an in universe fashion. The 'Real World' category was made with the intention to set aside articles that did not fit into that mindset; so best I can tell the avatar world aspect is just assumed automatically unless browsing into Real World. Yeah; it does seem weird. I actually find myself agreeing with your layout suggested in your second paragraph.

Well, here's the interesting part in lieu of "Legend of Korra." Like it or hate it, the cats appear duplicated. Most listed under 'Legend of Korra' are also listed in the 'Avatar World' assumed categorization. It's kind of like how we have Category:Comics characters and Category:Characters (film) to go along with a 'Characters' broad category, so by having something akin to Category:Legend of Korra characters it allows one to look under Characters for a complete list of all characters in the entire Avatar franchise, but they can drill down into the Legend of Korra characters category (or the broad Legend of Korra) for information pertaining solely to that series, that otherwise would be lost by simply leaving the articles lumped in with the entire franchise's characters. So, despite it looking like a bit of a mess (which, yes, it does look a little messy), it really does offer a form of navigation that would otherwise be missed.

You make some very strong and well-thought out (and well described) points, CzechOut. :) Vulmen (talk • EoK) 04:35, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

Although Legend of Korra shares the same world as The Last Airbender, it is hardly the same setting. Only one character (so far and I believe ever) is in both series and Republic City resembles medieval "China" not in the least. Even comparing it to the one big city we did see, Ba Sing Se, there is not much resemblance. Storywise, this is a good thing; LOK being a rehash of TLA only with an older girl would not be as compelling to watch. To keep things neat (and allow for the possibility of a third series) I would therefore advocate having Category The Last Avatar Characters, Category Legend of Korra Characters and Category Avatar World for all the rest of the critters, foods, weapons, etc. We've already seen an air buffalo shared between the two series; I would assume we'll be seeing more items in common as LOK unfolds. DesertDog (wall) 12:20, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think we run the risk of not remembering the past. If you're watching TLA from the start, as we now are with LOK, then you find all manner of "dissimilar" settings. Omashu looks different to the Southern Air Temple to the mining village to Ba Sing Se. But I think we all accept it's all part of the same setting. Likewise, "Welcome to Republic City" starts out in a Water Tribe village that seems pretty similar to (if slightly bigger than) the one that served as the backdrop for "The Boy in the Iceberg".

Republic City strikes me as being completely the same setting to which we've grown accustomed. It's just a city that we met in what could just as easily be called "series 4, episode 1". I think you can definitely see that it's a part of the same setting. It seems clearly influenced by the work of the Mechanist, and has an architecture that's a blend of Ba Sing Se, the Northern Air Temple and Fire Fountain City, amongst others. It's a new city, sure, but so was Omashu when we first saw it. And we don't have categories for "Series 1 locations".

There's nothing preventing this series from returning to cities we've seen in TLA. Do we really want to have a somewhat artificial separation between "stuff in TLA" and "stuff in LOK", when the producers are obviously trying very hard to tell an integrated story? If this were the Star Wars wiki, you'd want to have Category:Prequel trilogy stuff and Category:Original trilogy stuff — despite the fact that there's significant overlap between the two? You say there's only one character who overlaps — and by that I assume you mean Katara — but Aang saturates the storytelling, at least so far. I mean his son is clearly one of the two leads at this point, and his grandchildren are prominently placed. He hangs over Korra like the albatross of expected greatness, which is why we keep getting scenes that end on a shot of the Aang statue in the harbor. I think we have to imagine that he might well appear to Korra like Avatar Roku did to him. Plus, we have other descendants of TLA characters, like the police chief, and indeed the fact that metalbending has now become a skill practiced by more than just Toph.

If you're using categories as mere lists, then I kind of understand the point Vulmen is making. You might want to have a list of "new series" characters and "old series" characters. Okay, I get that.

But. I think it sets a dangerous precedent that makes that advantage not worth having. DesertDog seems to be saying, "Collapse all the 'other stuff' into the same categories, but keep the characters separated." And I'm not sure how well that works, administratively. Because someone later might say, "Well, the characters are segregated, so shouldn't the locations be so as well?" And then someone even later might say, "Well, the characters and locations are segregated, now let's do the flora and fauna as well." And then you start telling yourself, "Well, that's okay, because I'm sure that people are double-categorizing. So my list of characters includes everything in the subcat, Cat:LOK characters, and my list of fauna includes everything in the subcat, Cat:LOK fauna" But people won't do that, cause some will think that they should only use the most appropriate category, and some just won't even think to do it in the first place. So then you're forced to use your bot (if you have one) to regularly maintain the dual lists.

And that seems like an awful lot of trouble, given that it's an artificial distinction the producers of the programmes wouldn't want you to make at all. czechout ☎ ✍  15:39: Sat 21 Apr 2012