Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains/Categories

Initial Categorization[edit]

Okay, it's probably time we talked about how we want to categorize the mountains. I've been holding off a bit as I try a few things out and see what might work best. However, hike395 has brought up some points on my talk page that need to be discussed.

So currently, this is how the categories are laid out (just a sample, not complete):

Category:Geography
         -> Category:Landforms
             --> Category:Mountains
                 ---> Category:African mountains
                 ---> Category:Asian mountains
                      ---> Category:Mountains of Pakistan
                 ---> Category:European mountains
                 ---> Category:North American mountains
                 ---> Category:Mountains of Canada
                 ---> Category:Mountains of Mexico
                 ---> Category:Mountains of the United States

I created the continent subcategories to provide an initial categorization of some peaks where the country specific "Mountains of XXXX" do not exist yet. I created Category:North American mountains with the intent of moving the Canada, Mexico, and US subcategories to it although this has not been done yet as I'm not sure yet if this is the best solution. However, it would fit in with how the rest of the categorization is being done with respect to North America. I had also started putting the Canadian mountains both in Category:Mountains of Canada and Category:North American mountains so that one would be able to see an entire list of mountains in North America. As hike395 mentioned on my talk page, there has been some discussion about automatically generating a list of articles under subtrees which I agree with so we wouldn't have to do this manually. So, I will temporarily halt of addition of individual mountains to Category:North American mountains. I will also leave existing entries for the moment until we decide on what to do.

The one other point is the naming convention I used for the country specific mountains category. That is, "Mountains of Canada" versus "Canadian mountains". I looked at the discussions regarding categorization and other top level categories but could not see a consistent approach. If there was a discussion about the layout of categories before it was implemented, I was not aware of it. I do a lot of disambiguation where links like "German" can refer to many things such as Germany or German language. The other factor was that "American mountains" (for the USA) is just too ambiguous for my tastes, especially when we have Category:America. So, I decided to use the "Mountains of XXXX" convention as it's very clear what the category represents. If they get category redirects working, we can always add the other convention as redirects. RedWolf 21:40, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Lots of interesting things to talk about!

I'm totally happy with "Mountains of XXX". I have an additional suggestion: if the category link in the subcategory looks like [[Category:Mountains|XXX, Mountains of]], then the sub-categories will be alphabetized by country name, rather than being stuck in M. What do people think of this?
I wonder if a category with 3 sub-categories is worth having? My preference is to just not use Category:North American mountains --- I hope people know that Canada, USA, and Mexico make up North America! Otherwise, I think it is unwise to put articles in both Category:North American mountains and Category:Mountains of Canada, for the reasons that RedWolf listed above. Now, inconsistently, I think that Category:European mountains can usefully have sub-categories, because there are many countries in Europe. Same thing for Asia and Africa. I know this is inconsistent, but I want to make this category easy to browse, which means hiding or not hiding sub-categories in a context-sensitive manner. Or, if this inconsistency really offends people, I am completely content with a list of mountains by country, and just forget about listing them per continent (except for Antarctica, of course, which has no countries).
(A little later:) Another thought struck me --- Should mountaineering be a sub-category under mountains, or is that too weird?

--- hike395 05:28, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestion of adding the sort key is a good one. I had already done this for the Mountains of Canada earlier in the day. So, I did this for the "Mountains of XXX" just now but ended up with some strange results and had to add sort keys for "Asian mountains", etc. just so they would end up in the same A! Also, "Mountains of Canada" and "Mountains of China" are listed under separate C dividers — a bug I think. I'll check sourceforge (yup, SF bug)
The work-around for this is to pipe sort all articles or subcategories. Mike 00:30, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

The question of whether to move Canada, Mexico and US mountains under Category:North American mountains is a tricky one. By not doing so makes it inconsistent with the way it's been laid out in other areas but because there's only 3, it seems to add an unnecessary level of distraction if we go that route.
Is there any reason why you couldn't do both? The advantage of having a category for North American mountains is that it can also be a subcategory to Category:North America or Category:Geography of North America Mike 00:57, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

My first impression of mountaineering being a sub-category of mountains is "weird"! :=) It's definitely related of course, but then what about hiking, hill-walking, etc. Probably might go better in a sports related category but then again, I find it hard to classify hiking as a sport in the normal sense. Perhaps under a "Recreational activities" but possibly not a perfect fit either. More thought...

RedWolf 07:07, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestion about "recreational activities" made me run off and make Category:Recreation, with a sub-category Category:Climbing that contains Mountaineering. So, we won't put that in here.

I changed the "See also" reference to a "Related categories" section and added Climbing to the list. Take a look and see if you think this looks acceptable. Mike 00:48, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at the discussion so far, to me it looks like the best direction (for consistency & reader-friendliness) would be to just make a big list of "Mountains of XXX" and forget continents. It's too bad that categorization doesn't allow you to look two levels deep! Anyway, if a country YYY has less than (say) 7 mountain articles, we probably should just list the articles under Category:Mountains and not have a Category:Mountains of YYY. --- hike395 19:24, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Deprecated categories[edit]

I have unlinked Category:North American mountains from Category:Mountains. Since we are no longer going to put Category:Mountains of Canada, Category:Mountains of the United States or Category:Mountains of Mexico into that category, no longer need it. RedWolf 06:09, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

If it is no longer being used, should it be deleted? —Mike 21:32, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I have now listed it on Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion. RedWolf 22:42, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Categories for Mountains of the US states[edit]

Several subcategories now exist to put the mountains of a US state into its own subcategory rather than in Category:Mountains of the United States. Should we keep some of the more well known mountains in both the US general category and the state specific category? e.g. Mount McKinley (Denali)? For now, it exists in both Category:Alaska mountains and Category:Mountains of the United States. As for creating new state subcategories, perhaps there should be a minimum number of articles before moving mountains to the state category? For example, 5? Also, the naming convention being used for the state categories is "<state name> mountains" and NOT "Mountains of <state name>', that format is reserved for countries. The state format also is consistent for the categories being used for a state's rivers. RedWolf 06:09, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)