Bahaipedia:Categorization

This page in a nutshell: Categories help users navigate through Bahaipedia via multiple taxonomies Categories are for defining characteristics, and should be specific, inclusive and follow certain conventions.

Good categorization is an important factor in allowing Bahaipedia users to find the information they're looking for. Although Bahaipedia's categorization scheme is still evolving, certain practices and conventions have been widely adopted.

All categories on Bahaipedia are contained in a category tree, with its root at Category:Contents. This top-level category contains three sub-categories:

• The main category for articles (i.e. encyclopedic content) on Bahaipedia is Category:Topics.
• The main category for our taxonomical structure is Category:Categories.
• The main category for Bahaipedia-related administration and maintenance files is Category:Bahaipedia administration.

This article will offer some guidelines on what kinds of pages should go in each of these, and how to use the Bahaipedia categories in general.

Why categories?

Physical libraries often group books on shelves by topic. On Bahaipedia, categories are used for flexibility and ease of discovery.

To illustrate why Bahaipedia uses the categorization scheme it does, imagine a physical library that uses a classification system such as the Dewey Decimal System. Every book in that library has a code that identifies its main topic. For example, the book Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era has a code of 297.93, which corresponds to the Bahá’í Faith. By searching for this code in library shelves, readers can find this book and many other books on the same topic. However, the Dewey system only allows for grouping books by topic. In a library that uses the Dewey system, books by the same author on different topics would be placed far apart, making discovery difficult without consulting a database and writing down a list.

The strength of Bahaipedia—as with other wikis—is that it allows for multiple taxonomies. Instead of limiting articles to a single, main topic, articles on Bahaipedia can be labeled with multiple categories that describe other facets or characteristics of their subject. To use the same example above, the article for Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era is categorized as an introductory work written by John Esslemont, published by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust of the United States in 1923. Each of these categories contains many other articles that share the same characteristic, allowing an ease of discovery that is impossible on library shelves.

Topics

All articles on Bahaipedia should be contained in one or more categories that fall under Category:Topics. This top-level category contains several sub-categories for different areas of knowledge: for instance, culture, history, people, religion, and science and technology. Each of these contains further sub-categories, allowing for more and more precise categorization.

Here are all the top-level subcategories currently contained in Bahaipedia's Topics category:

• Activities
• Concepts
• Culture
• Economy
• Geography

• History
• Nature
• Objects
• Organizations
• People

• Philosophy
• Religion
• Science and technology
• Society

Consider Category:People, which contains subcategories for different types of people: Notable Bábís‎ and Bahá’ís, Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith, and Manifestations of God. To find an article on Hand of the Cause ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan‎, for example, one would simply look in the "Notable Bahá’ís" category to find the subcategory for Hands of the Cause of God.

How to categorize articles

Describe characteristics

Articles should be placed in categories that meaningfully describe their subject's characteristics. For instance, the subject of the tutor article is a type of person who serves in a particular role connected to the training institute process. For this reason, the article is placed in categories for People by role and the Institute process.

Be specific

Bahaipedia's categorization system is hierarchical, meaning that general categories contain more specific ones. For example, the category for Writings of Bahá’u’lláh‎ can be found in the category trees of Works and Religion. To take full advantage of this system, articles should be placed in categories that are as specific as possible. For instance, the article Children's class is placed in Category:Education of children rather than the more general Category:Education.

Categories (taxonomical structure)

It is easy to combine categories together to create more specific ones. These topics can also be combined with others to create intersectional categories: for instance, People by occupation, Bahá'ís by country‎, or Works by author‎.

Often, entire taxonomies can be created this way. For instance, Category:Bahá'ís from the United States‎ combines the category trees of Category:Notable Bahá’ís and Category:United States‎, using the structural category Bahá'ís by country. These kinds of structural categories are indexed using hidden categories that fall under Category:Categories.

Bahaipedia administration

Certain categories are needed to contain articles which, while not consisting of actual encyclopedic content, are nevertheless essential to maintaining a wiki. These categories fall under Category:Bahaipedia administration.

Administrative categories generally fall into a few types:

• Help – Pages that help orient users, allow them to learn to use Bahaipedia and ask questions.
• Policy and guidelines – Pages that present official project policies and helpful guidelines for editors.
• Other non-content pages such as the following:

• Disambiguation pages;
• Templates;
• Media files.