Forum:New categories

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Categories

I was going to put this on David's page but then I feel like I'm turning my back on John as it were. Said Mr Tomlin was recently talking about new articles such as for hairnets and the like, and new categories to put them in, and how to categorize pages like Victoria Wood. I've still got my thinking cap on for a good title, but no luck yet I'm afraid.

Pets

Another category we will definitely want is Category:Animals. Do you think we'd want sepearte categories for Cats, Dogs, Budgies and Pigeons as well? One of the reasons I am raising this is because I have noticed differing approaches to the pigeons between David and myself. I have linked to pigeons, but not Scarlet, whereas David hasn't linked to pigeons, but has to Scarlett O'Hara. I certainly think we need a 'Pigeons' article - they even had an important part to play in the 35th anniversary Coronation Street Game. Would it not be better to have details of any specific pigeons within such a page? Secondly what IS the returned pigeon's name? While I see many sources go for David's choice, itv.com give it as simply Scarlet. Would we not be better assuming this to be the most trusted source? Have we ever heard it called anything other than Scarlet? I note that the longer version only appears on one corriepeia page at the moment, so there doesn't seem to be a history of it (well not notable enough anyway). Actually that in itself was a very weird thing - if I typed in Scarlett O'Hara into the searchbox, I got no results at all - I only got a result by copying the name directly from the episode page. I have double checked my spelling and the two URL's seem identical as well, so why would it do this? Seems rather odd!

(Could be the apostrophe - there's more than one sort on a keyboard; Genealogy Wikia has problems with searching for page titles with question-marks. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC))

Thanks, you're probably right. TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I just think we should all be singing from the same song-sheet. At the moment we're calling the same bird by totally different names (note also itv.com only gives one 't', not two), and we're offering up different link alternatives! I personally feel that pigeons is correct, and that any notable pigeons should go on that page. What do others feel?

--TellyFan 02:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Awards

When I was improving the Tina O'Brien page I suddenly realised we were lacking an awards category. How do you like my BAFTA page? I have noticed that awards have started to be added to year pages, so I thought it would be a good idea to do something different to a chronological listing, and instead list them by category. I'd quite like to tackle the Soap Awards if no one minds as well. :)

--TellyFan 02:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Great! I've been rejigging the categories today. Animals category has been created, and the Places category has finally been sorted out, with subcategories added instead of simply putting everything into the Places category. All in-universe articles are now in the in-universe category, which can be reached from the main Coronation Street category. David 10:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

David, I noticed all your hard work, some of which I thought was really good, but I wonder whether there are suddenly too many categories? One in particular that stood out to me was the Community Centres category. Is there not only one Community Centre? Well OK, IIRC when they found the bomb in the garden they went to one, but wouldn't we count it as the same anyway, i.e. Weatherfield Community Centre. We only have one page for The Kabin, afterall, and that has had more than one location too. If we're going to have so many categories I think we're likely to forget them, and new people won't have a clue. I noticed you yourself couldn't remember whether one of the new ones was 'towns and cities' or 'cities and towns'! Do wikia's automatically come with some sort of 'sitemap' that I haven't seen? The main categories page lists all categories indiscriminately with no consideration as to how they branch of each other! If there isn't a sitemap, maybe we should create one??TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

There are a few buildings that could qualify as community centres even if they aren't named as such (the Mission was also a community centre). The trickiest thing about creating categories is that sometimes it's necessary to separate businesses from premises. The Kabin is a single business so has one page, but has been in Rosamund Street (that's where it was before, I think) and Coronation Street. Most of the categories seemed to lend themselves naturally considering the content, and I did look at some other wikis first for reference. The thing is right now we don't have many articles on places/things, but categories have been created so that we're ready for them (the 'Places' category was a mess, with everything and kitchen sink simply put in there before rather than anything more specific). English Cities and towns made sense, there didn't seem to be much point in having a cities category and a towns category, and I made that a category contained in English locations so that I had somewhere to put places that weren't cities or towns (Blue John Mines was the article that made that necessary, along with the mysterious Knott End). As more articles are written appropriate categories will be created as needed. I think there is a sitemap somewhere, I'm sure I've seen one on another wiki. I'll get back to you on that! David 21:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Robin's first response

This is a much better place to discuss categories than anyone's talk page.

Would there be more than a couple of named cats over 40 years? How about dogs - two in recent years, and I don't remember earlier. What about birds - enough named birds to justify a separate category? Possibly. May as well have a "Category:Birds" too, and both can be subcategories of "Category:Pets". The pigeon with the name problem can have all possible names redirecting to the pigeons page unless justifying its own page. A note on one of those can say that there is some question about the name. That could alert editors, who might then be more likely to notice when listening to an episode. If "O'Hara" is added, then there must be two Ts. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Named cats, possibly not, but they are one of the most iconic Corrie images. When Bill Podmore re-jigged the opening titles, he particulalry picked out the cat on the rooftops as one that should be included in the new set. The two subsequent versions have also, deliberatley, featured a cat. For this reason alone I'm sure cats justify their own page. Dogs have also appeared prominently in a similar way, including at one time at the adbreaks. There have been two notable budgies that I ecall in the past (plus their replacements!) which was why I suggested a budgie category. I'm not sure that we'd need birds as well? The majority of named animals are inevitably pets so again perhaps "Pets" is a cateogry too far? TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Amount of personal contribution

Meanwhile, I have indicated that I want to reduce the time I spend here for the time being. The time has now come, I'm afraid. Indeed even the past 24 - 48 hours I have hardly done any delinking etc - partly cos I was awaiting feedback on my idea. At least putting a clean-up tag on pages lets everyone else know we aren't happy with the standard of the page. Can such a small team of regular contributors really be expected to spend so much time tidying up other people's work? I think John's 'spot the difference' comment demonstrates how utterly fed up with it all he is. I've got other things to be getting on with at the moment so *I* don't want to do it. Other than spending hours changing them all, what other option is there than to stick a clean-up tag on?

Anyway, I hope to be able to contribute regularly again within about a month, although I'm not promising anything. It may end up being more like 2 months. Feel free to message me in the meantime :) Especially replies to this and other things I've posted here and there. As a great man once said: "One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back..."

--TellyFan 02:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I doubt there would be much to say about individual pigeons so I'd favour an overall pigeons page. If the ITV site gives the name as Scarlet I think we should go with that.

I'm glad you agree, but you have left Episode 7056 (17th April 2009) unchanged.TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think most of us are fed up because the Corriepedia team now is pretty much the same as it was when it started, in fact over time our numbers seem to be thinning! I'm persevering because I'm determined to make this site a success. David 10:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Guys, bar the odd barbed comment over the past 48 hours I've kept quiet but I must confess that I'm in the same boat as David - a bit peed off but continuing. My reasons for carrying on are two-fold - first, I mirror the reason that David gave above, and second, the fact I do thoroughly enjoy contributing to this site and learning more and more as I contribute. I'm changing my plan of attack though - I'm not going to go back and change and amend what I think are extremely poor entries AS they are input but let them fester and change them at a future point. As well the the stub solution another way of dealing with these in the future is to clear them up by looking at the "short pages" listing on the special pages listing (that's how I was reminded that the pages for Jack P. Shepherd Alison King and Anthony Booth were so bad and why I re-wrote them on Friday). I was despondent about the new contributions because I believe we do already have the best reference site on the web for the programme already and any degradation of quality annoys me. I wish our contributors would register and then we could guide and help their, undoubtedly, well-meaning efforts but they appear somewhat blind to entreaties - I say somewhat blind because their date format has changed and that's a start. If you do read this, nameless contributor, do please register with a user name and we can start a useful dialogue. We will not admonish what you have done so far but will point you to a large number of useful sources (all on-line - no expense involved) and help and guide you to contribute throughly encyclopedic entries. Please talk! For myself, I'm going to carry on with cast credits, and calendar entries, the odd-tidy up and then make use of the two books I recently purchased on the history of the street. I'm here for the duration!!--Jtomlin1uk 12:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem with letting them fester and later going through the 'short pages' section is that you can only view the 1000 shortest pages. Some pages would remain in the 'top 1000' however thorough we were, and I think there'd be a danger that after a time some under-standard pages would be too long to appear on the list.TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Great work, chaps. To get nearly 10,000 articles with so few workers is magnificent. Maybe it's time for more publicity. I guess I should write a Squidoo lens to start with; my three about the Genealogy Wikia have brought a couple of keen contributors in. Of course anyone can write for squidoo.com, and you guys know this site better than I do, so it could be one of you! Same goes for Facebook and Twitter. No results from my various posts to Corrie groups on Facebook, so maybe it needs postings from two or three of us. I'm very new on Twitter but I'll keep my eyes peeled for possibilities. With ten million UK viewers and more millions in the former colonies, there must be a market to tap if we push the right buttons. Having a lot of poor articles clearly tagged as needing cleanup could be a good thing: it just might attract a few more pedants like me who enjoy cleaning up typos and other less obvious faults. I haven't studied any cleanup tags; they should lead to a list of quality standards that such new cleaners can relate to and follow. (Well past my bedtime, so that's me for now.) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I want to talk about my ideas for publicity in a seperate posting - now is a good time with Corriepedia's first birthday approaching. What I will say now is that I'm concerned about the potential negative consequences of advertising on places like Facebook. We've already got pockets of vandalism, and perhaps these are the sorts of places it is more likely to come from as they are often used by the more juvenile members of society. We don't really have enough regular editors here to cope with a large amount of vndalism. We're more likely to get useful contributors, I feel, coming from sites that already specifically attract Corrie fans. Anyway, that's it form me for now!TellyFan 15:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I definitely agree with this. We'd still have to worry about good faith edits (like our friend who copies articles from corrie.net) but that's infinitely more preferable than vandalism. David 21:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)